shutterstock 2506434927

5-bullet-placeholder

Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

The newest addition to the Paradigm Press team draws your attention to what he calls “an opportunity we only see emerge once in a decade — if that.” 

The “Echo Trade” (Rare Opportunity)

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" /> Recession Incoming
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />For all the jubilation over an election result that didn&rsquo;t take weeks to thrash out&hellip; there&rsquo;s a fly in the ointment. Maybe a swarm of them&hellip;
&ldquo;A recession is likely,&rdquo; says Paradigm macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards. As Jim sees it, no amount of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve can forestall that outcome.
&ldquo;Trump&rsquo;s policies will be good for the economy over the next two&ndash;four years, but the next six&ndash;nine months will likely be the legacy of Biden&rsquo;s inflation, excess spending, deficits and regulatory burdens that are pointing to a recession now.&rdquo;
Bad news for Trump? Not necessarily&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;In Ronald Reagan&rsquo;s first term, he inherited a recession from the Carter years,&rdquo; says Jim, reaching for a historical analogue baby boomers remember well.
&ldquo;This dominated the first few years of his presidency until his policies turned the economy into a robust growth machine.
&ldquo;We see the incoming Trump presidency seeing a similar timeline. Expect some tough economic times in the first 12&ndash;18 months before a pivot to a strong economy in the second half of the Trump term.&rdquo;
The U.S. economy slipped into recession in July 1981 &mdash; six months into Reagan&rsquo;s term. It was a bad one &mdash; by some measures, the worst since the Great Depression. Demand for homes and cars dried up as millions of workers lost their jobs.
It dragged on for 16 months, until November 1982. But it did set the stage for a strong recovery and an economic expansion that lasted all the way until the summer of 1990.
&ldquo;Recessions happen,&rdquo; says Jim. &ldquo;Politically it&rsquo;s good to get them out of the way at the start of your term so you can finish strong.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> By the way, the Reagan experience might be the reason you hear much media chatter about trying to push through the bulk of Trump&rsquo;s agenda during his first two years.
&ldquo;He obviously has the House and the Senate now on his side, so it could be that for the next two years we see this direction,&rdquo; says Stefan Gratzer, managing director at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. After the 2026 midterm elections, Gratzer tells Bloomberg it might be &ldquo;not so easy to do those things.&rdquo;
Indeed, the president&rsquo;s party usually loses ground in Congress during midterm elections.
Here again, the Reagan experience is illustrative. Reagan pushed through sizable chunks of his agenda in the first two years despite a split Congress &mdash; Republicans in charge of the Senate, Democrats in the House.
But the task became much harder after the 1982 midterms &mdash; Republicans losing a seat in their already-slender Senate majority and Democrats adding a whopping 26 seats in the House.

<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Even if the economy is headed into recession, Jim anticipates ample moneymaking opportunities going into 2025.
That&rsquo;s because of Jim&rsquo;s patent-protected AI stock scanning software called Project Prophecy 2.0. It has an uncanny ability to sniff out news before it happens &mdash; including a 102% gain in anticipation of Trump&rsquo;s election victory.
Other examples include&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Occidental Petroleum before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The resulting gain &mdash; 214%</li>
<li>Goldman Sachs before Trump&rsquo;s shock election victory in November 2016. The resulting gain &mdash; 328%</li>
<li>Moderna Inc. before COVID became widespread in the United States in March 2020. The resulting gain &mdash; 564%.</li>
</ul>
Frequently, the gains can materialize in a matter of days &mdash; not weeks or months.
Don&rsquo;t believe it? <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2377351">Click here&hellip; let Jim walk you through a 15-second demo&hellip; and decide for yourself</a>.

All that said, an incoming recession might be the least of our concerns this morning. Read on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" /> WWIII Looms, Gold Leaps
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As a new week begins, precious metals are doing exactly what precious metals are supposed to do &mdash; serving as a hedge against geopolitical catastrophe.
Over the weekend, as if to scream to the world I&rsquo;M STILL RELEVANT, Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use long-range missiles provided by Washington to strike inside Russian territory.
(So much for the &ldquo;smooth transition&rdquo; to a new administration, huh?)
ATACMS, these missiles are called &mdash; short for Army Tactical Missile Systems &mdash; with a range of 190 miles. Ukraine can operate them only with coordinates provided by or confirmed by the United States or its allies. Thus Washington keeps tiptoeing ever closer to becoming a direct combatant in what for the moment remains a proxy war.
Exactly how Moscow plans to respond to this escalation, it&rsquo;s not saying. Russian English-language state TV is wall-to-wall with maps showing the territory now potentially under threat&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5Lv252mXiQM39VE3uFm0Aj/4d1d5787a6d2f943232656a87b7a884f/RT.png" alt="RT" width="540px" />
Previously Vladimir Putin has said if NATO supported long-range strikes in Russia, NATO would be &ldquo;at war with Russia.&rdquo; Would airstrikes on U.S. bases in Europe be off-limits?
And that doesn&rsquo;t even get into the North Korean question. Assuming North Korean forces are fighting on Moscow&rsquo;s side &mdash; which Moscow still won&rsquo;t confirm &mdash; what does it mean if Washington is directly supporting attacks on the troops of yet another nuclear-armed country besides Russia?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1bQpmVMEExXLzVAEUx8hXq/ffd4f1b02a8227186db74d2672e97fe3/NewsthatMatters.png" alt="news that matters" width="540px" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> With all those questions swirling, gold has powered nearly $50 higher this morning, back to $2,611. Silver is up nearly a buck to $31.15. Crude is also reacting &mdash; up $1.77 to $68.79.
The stock market, meanwhile, is in rally mode &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 up nearly a half percent and only four points away from reclaiming the 5,900 level. The Nasdaq is up stronger, the Dow nearly flat.
All eyes are on Nvidia &mdash; the last of the &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; companies to report its quarterly numbers, after the closing bell on Wednesday. For the moment, NVDA is down 1.3% on news that its high-end Blackwell chips are overheating, depending on how they&rsquo;re used.
Meanwhile, Netflix is up 1.9% on the day &mdash; immune, it seems, to any backlash over widespread streaming glitches during the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight Friday night.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6vkLnxF8brXCsdMDXDizbh/ab3bc656e1fad79ee4e7dd4996f687d3/LynZ.png" alt="lynn z" width="540px" />
Meanwhile, Bitcoin is powering higher, *this* close from reclaiming the $92,000 level.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />The 48-Hour Rule, aka &ldquo;Knuckman&rsquo;s Law&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Assuming the world doesn&rsquo;t end before Jan. 20 of next year, it&rsquo;s time to revisit &ldquo;Knuckman&rsquo;s law.&rdquo;
Not that Alan Knuckman &mdash; Paradigm&rsquo;s eyes and ears at the Chicago options exchanges &mdash; ever called it that. That&rsquo;s the name we gave it during Trump&rsquo;s first term.
Alan&rsquo;s rule of thumb: Don&rsquo;t react to anything Trump says for 48 hours. Give events that much time to shake out.
It&rsquo;s worth bearing in mind at a time when we&rsquo;re already seeing headlines like this&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7gHFu6fUd66HoXbuzgC8nU/8fb494a21909e1ae999c010c4cba03e3/BNN.png" alt="BNN" width="540px" />
&ldquo;The return of trade wars and governance-by-tweet,&rdquo; says the subhead to a Bloomberg article anticipating Trump&rsquo;s second term.
&ldquo;Large corporations crave predictability, and the primary economic policy of Donald Trump is chaos. Whether it&rsquo;s the threat of steep new tariffs or retribution, chief executive officers and their carefully drawn plans will once again be at the whims of a leader who&rsquo;s emboldened to reorder the economy.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> And so the market freaked out when Trump named Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
XBI, the big biotech ETF, took a 3% spill on Friday. Pfizer and Moderna, the companies behind the COVID jabs, sold off 5% &mdash; which made for great fun in the meme-o-sphere&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3mBYuDFCTW7VZidxmbBkx0/f27630c925a93743cf4bd8137d973cb6/Pfizer.png" alt="Pfizer" width="540px" />
&ldquo;We are not surprised the sector has been under pressure on the potential for RFK Jr. having oversight of the various agencies within HHS (including the FDA, the CDC, NIH and Medicare/Medicaid) given his previous stated views on the industry,&rdquo; said a note from JPMorgan Chase.
Then everyone took the weekend to chill.
Today XBI is up a half percent. Truth be told, XBI had run up too far too fast in the immediate aftermath of the election results &mdash; and it was already in the process of correcting that overshoot when the RFK news crossed the wire.
Now there&rsquo;s been time to stop and think. The reality is that RFK Jr. might not survive the Senate confirmation process. And if he does, exactly what will he prioritize in a sprawling bureaucracy that oversees one-quarter of the federal budget?
We have a feeling Knuckman&rsquo;s law will prove itself useful many times over the next four years. Stay tuned&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Your Government In Action
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />For the record: The Pentagon still can&rsquo;t pass an audit.
The Department of Defense has undergone annual audits for seven years. It has yet to pass. Indeed on this go-round, only nine of the Pentagon&rsquo;s 28 agencies passed. (The audit itself, by the way, cost $178 million.)
But hope springs eternal: &ldquo;I believe the department has turned a corner in its understanding of the challenges, and more importantly, in addressing those challenges,&rdquo; says Under Secretary of Defense and Chief Financial Officer Michael McCord.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The history of attempts to audit the Pentagon is even more pitiful than the headline news suggests.
We&rsquo;ve recounted the history before, but it&rsquo;s worth revisiting today: Way back in 1990, Congress passed a law ordering the Pentagon to be audit-ready by 1996.
But there were never any &ldquo;or else&rdquo; consequences attached to the deadline, which Congress kept pushing back. The Pentagon didn&rsquo;t even get around to attempting an audit until &mdash; well, that first of seven failed audits in 2018.
From time to time, American leaders performatively wrung their hands about the Pentagon&rsquo;s inability to maintain its books. Perhaps the most infamous instance occurred on the day before the 9/11 attacks in 2001 &mdash; when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fessed up that, &ldquo;According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s $2.3 trillion going back only five years to the original 1996 deadline. By 2013, the total swelled to about $8.5 trillion. As far as we can tell, no one in an official capacity has even tried to update the total since.
Investment implications? For the last couple of years, the defense sector has more or less tracked the S&amp;P 500 &mdash; after two decades of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/a-totalitarian-bureaucracy-within-our-shores">spectacular outperformance</a>. As Jim Rickards noted here <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-47-investment-playbook">last week</a>, that outperformance is set to resume under a Trump administration.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Bond Vigilantes, Gun Ownership
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />After Enrique Abeyta&rsquo;s observations about the bond market in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/youtube-meme-to-crypto-queen">Friday&rsquo;s edition</a>, a reader writes&hellip;
&ldquo;The financial media and newsletter writers keep asking the question, &lsquo;Where are the bond vigilantes in our fiscally dominated economy?&rsquo;
&ldquo;They will not be showing up.
&ldquo;I would like to propose an alternative hypothesis. The bond vigilantes of yore are retired or in nursing homes.
&ldquo;We are now dealing with the crypto bros and gals (age 25&ndash;45) who are approaching government overreach from a different playbook. They will rally their followers on Reddit or Telegram, elect their candidates and then silently retreat.
&ldquo;James Carville, update <a href="https://www.azquotes.com/quote/722790">your wish!</a>&rdquo;
Dave responds: No doubt, you&rsquo;re onto something. It&rsquo;s still early days but Bitcoin appears to be proving its mettle as a store of value alongside gold.
Both stand to thrive amid government profligacy &mdash; and much as we cheer on the stated aims of the Musk/Vivek DOGE, we have our doubts it will come to anything.
And if that&rsquo;s the case, the bond vigilantes are bound to show up sometime. We&rsquo;re in a new cycle of generally rising interest rates that began in 2020 and if history is any guide will continue well into the 2050s.
At the very least, we could wind up with <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/is-buffett-losing-it#3">a &ldquo;Liz Truss moment&rdquo;</a> as happened in the U.K. two years ago&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Talk about tone-deaf,&rdquo; a reader inveighs.
&ldquo;The shot (pun intended) at the end of the 5 Bullets (pun two) <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-47-investment-playbook">on Thursday</a> was way off target.
&ldquo;Clearly, Dave has never lived in a part of the country where people use guns and are self-reliant. Perhaps he should stop shooting himself with his own words.&rdquo;
Dave: Au contraire. My wife and I are delighted to make our home in a place where gun deer season is currently underway and normal folks own perhaps five firearms.
Which brings to mind the following gag I ran across the other day, its creator and origin unknown&hellip;
-How many guns should a normal person have? -About five -That sounds like a gun enthusiast to me -No, a gun enthusiast has 15 -That sounds like someone obsessed with guns -No, people obsessed with guns have hundreds -That sounds like a psycho -No, psychos seldom own guns, or just get one or two -That sounds like a normal person though -No, a normal person has about five, we already covered that.
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

dap-img1-gridlock-rush-hour-traffic-540-shutterstock 2044706357

For all the jubilation over an election result that didn’t take weeks to thrash out, there’s a speed bump. Maybe a plethora of them. 

The Trump Speed Bump

shutterstock 2444018443

Never did I imagine I’d be writing about the “Hawk Tuah Girl” in a financial e-letter. But here we are.

YouTube Meme to Crypto Queen? 

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />&ldquo;Echo Trades&rdquo; Go Boom
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;&lsquo;Echo trades&rsquo; usually only occur once a decade. But when they do, they can generate returns of 100%, 200% or even 500% in just a few months,&rdquo; says Enrique Abeyta, the newest addition to the Paradigm Press team.
&ldquo;Often, they set up some of the biggest stock market returns of all time,&rdquo; he adds. A prime example of an echo trade in action? The Carvana (CVNA) story is like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
&ldquo;Carvana was a well-positioned company with a great business model and a huge market,&rdquo; Enrique says.
Nevertheless, CVNA shares plummeted from over $375 in 2021 to just $3.55 in 14 months.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7iZ7NuLaNFWEKKBs8fnFzn/885729fe900b3a58bd30d42d62381903/carvana.png" alt="carvana" width="540px" />
&ldquo;After the company survived the pullback, the stock consolidated for a period. [What] happened next is the company began to fulfill its initial promise, and that trade became an &lsquo;echo boom,&rsquo; rising over 300% in less than a year.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/j9mtyzRFx3stF3i5wld0a/8561f9b45670e014e04c0660fb6edf7e/carvana-chart.png" alt="carvana chart" width="540px" />
Indeed, CVNA has surged about 400% year-to-date, now trading around $250 per share. This dramatic turnaround embodies the essence of an echo trade.
But how about a &ldquo;stock that has yet to take off in earnest &mdash; but is set up for an echo boom&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;The company is cloud-based communications software company Twilio Inc. (TWLO),&rdquo; says Enrique.
&ldquo;Unless you follow the software industry, you might not know the company,&rdquo; he says, but Twilio is like the Swiss Army knife of software, allowing &ldquo;customers to integrate all their communications onto a single platform.
&ldquo;TWLO went public back in 2016 and does over $4 billion in revenue today. That&rsquo;s less than 1% of their total addressable market of over $500 billion in the communications software space.
Like Carvana, Twilio&rsquo;s chart tells a familiar tale. After soaring to $450 per share in 2021, it nose-dived nearly 90%...
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/15PMb1H0Aa3xyEZqn6OMb8/b0479c93994bac3e0e9ee9c64076b1ed/Twilio1.png" alt="twilio" width="540px" />
&ldquo;After trading in a range between $45 and $76 for almost two years, the stock recently broke out to trade above $90 per share&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7FbCnLf3rT6LZpWverGpyO/2fb6626e821977252f9106346a7616c9/Twilio2.png" alt="twilio" width="540px" />
And the parallels between Twilio and Carvana are striking. Both crashed hard, both consolidated and both came back from the dead.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> It's like watching history repeat itself. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s put this in the context of a longer chart,&rdquo; Enrique says, &ldquo;and you can see the echo trade that&rsquo;s developing with TWLO&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4VkEYaWXWwkIOG8iUuUqQy/36e28de4b89508676f58402e1e3ae545/Twilio3.png" alt="twilio" width="540px" />
&ldquo;This chart looks a lot like the chart of Carvana from the middle of 2023 before it took off again. Just take a look for yourself&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4QZ7gWaN5msjTStl5JVS3T/37301cabb5ba58ec66669f7ef53d5806/carvana-chart2.png" alt="carvana chart" width="540px" />
While there are no guarantees in the stock market, Enrique believes TWLO has all the hallmarks of an echo trade. &ldquo;I hope you consider buying shares of TWLO before it becomes an echo boom,&rdquo; Enrique says.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not done yet though&hellip;
&ldquo;What I haven&rsquo;t mentioned until now is that I have a proprietary indicator that helps me identify when an echo trade becomes an echo boom.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an indicator used by Wall Street professionals managing trillions of dollars and costs tens of thousands of dollars to access,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll share more details with you soon.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Stocks: &ldquo;Never More Expensive&rdquo; 
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The &lsquo;Buffett Indicator&rsquo; is saying that, relative to the size of the U.S. economy, stocks have never been more expensive,&rdquo; says Paradigm editor Davis Wilson at The Million Mission. 
&ldquo;This indicator got its name from a comment Warren Buffett once made to a reporter&hellip;
&ldquo;Buffett said that comparing the market capitalization of all U.S. stocks to the size of the U.S. economy offered the clearest picture of where valuations stand at any given moment.
&ldquo;Right now, the S&amp;P 500 is worth around 1.7 times the entire U.S. gross domestic product,&rdquo; Davis says. &ldquo;Maybe this explains why Berkshire Hathaway has been consistently selling stocks and its cash pile just hit a record $325.2 billion&hellip;
&ldquo;Of course, I prefer when stocks are cheap and thus have a higher floor and higher upside potential.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;That being said, high valuations can present a unique trading opportunity,&rdquo; notes Davis.
&ldquo;High valuations increase volatility in the stock market,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;This means high-priced or &lsquo;expensive&rsquo; stocks often experience larger or more frequent price swings compared with lower-priced or more stable stocks.
&ldquo;These fluctuations can create profitable opportunities for traders, particularly those using short-term strategies like I&rsquo;m using here at The Million Mission.
&ldquo;My entire trading philosophy revolves around finding these profitable opportunities to buy high-quality companies on pullbacks,&rdquo; says Davis. &ldquo;Opportunities like this are on the horizon.
&ldquo;Currently, on my &lsquo;Watch List&rsquo; are three stocks &mdash; Nvidia (NVDA), Meta Platforms (META) and Rocket Lab (RKLB),&rdquo; he says. By the way: &ldquo;Nvidia reports earnings later today. It&rsquo;s the must-watch event of the week.
&ldquo;Stay tuned, because volatility is coming and that&rsquo;s great news for us.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Taking inventory of the stock market today, the three major U.S. indexes are slumping. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is down about 1% to 18,795 while the S&amp;P 500 and Big Board have pulled back 0.80% and 0.35% respectively.
<ul>
<li>Target Corp. reported disappointing Q3 earnings today, causing TGT shares to plummet over 20%. The retailer's earnings per share came in at $1.85, significantly below analysts' expectations of $2.29. Target's net income decreased by 12% to $854 million compared to the same period last year. The company cites a &ldquo;volatile operating environment&rdquo; impacting its bottom-line performance. We&rsquo;ll see if holiday shopping can turn things around for the retailer.</li>
</ul>
As for commodities, crude is up 0.20% to $69.54 for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate. Precious metals, meanwhile, are of two minds. Gold is up 0.85% to $2,653.40 per ounce; silver, on the other hand, is down 0.25% to $31.20.
Likewise, the two major cryptos are moving in opposite directions at the time of writing. Bitcoin is up 0.90% to $93,765. At the same time, Ethereum&rsquo;s down 0.80% to $3,085.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Experts on Crypto&rsquo;s Bullish Future
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Bitcoin recently hit an all-time high over $94,000 as investors anticipate a shift in regulatory attitudes and more. Experts weigh the implications of Trump&rsquo;s victory on the cryptocurrency landscape&hellip; 
First, with Trump's election, the U.S. also welcomed the most pro-crypto Congress in history, triggering what many are calling the most substantial crypto bull run in years.
&ldquo;The pendulum has swung violently from maximum opposition to a complete embrace,&rdquo; says Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures. &ldquo;The fundamental reality of Bitcoin in the U.S. is forever changed.
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a very real prospect that Bitcoin comes to be seen as a strategic reserve asset for governments, and if the U.S. looks likely to do that, other nations will try to front-run.&rdquo;
Carter predicts a price around $900,000 per Bitcoin over the next decade. &ldquo;But it will be a windy and nonlinear path to get there.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, expresses optimism about a new era for crypto in the U.S. &ldquo;We couldn&rsquo;t be in a better position,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;to get clarity and start to rebuild this industry in America.&rdquo;
Armstrong likewise notes that being anti-crypto is now seen as politically risky. &ldquo;As to what&rsquo;s in store for the future of crypto &mdash; the crypto voter won,&rdquo; he emphasizes.
The Winklevoss twins, co-founders of the Gemini exchange, highlight: &ldquo;The Bitcoin price surge is fueled by optimism for the future. An optimism we haven&rsquo;t seen in America in a very long time.
&ldquo;This is not an illusory zero-interest-rate phenomenon, late-stage growth hype, COVID stimulus or anything like that. This is real,&rdquo; they conclude.
&ldquo;As for how long this run will last, we think this cycle is different. We have a [pro tech] president-elect, a red Senate, a red House and popular vote mandate from the country to build. Factor in the prospect of a strategic Bitcoin reserve, and all bets are off.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />King Endorses Wright
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The Department of Energy people like it when the secretary of energy has completed graduate-level work in mechanical and electrical engineering,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s mining-and-energy expert Byron King, joining us to weigh in on Trump&rsquo;s cabinet pick to head the DOE &mdash; CEO Chris Wright of Liberty Energy.
&ldquo;Right away, he's a smart guy, especially in energy,&rdquo; Byron notes, highlighting Wright's qualifications in contrast to Biden&rsquo;s energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, who set &ldquo;a super-low bar for energy knowledge.&rdquo;
As for Wright&rsquo;s credentials: impeccable. Byron&rsquo;s impressed by Wright&rsquo;s academic background from institutions including MIT and Berkeley.
Plus, Byron praises Liberty Energy as a well-managed company. &ldquo;Fracking is actually a LOT of high-end math, physics, chemistry and engineering&rdquo; which requires significant expertise.
Byron provides further historical context for the DOE, emphasizing that it&rsquo;s not solely focused on energy policy. &ldquo;Much of the old Atomic Energy Commission work&rdquo; &mdash; rooted in national security and nuclear weapons management &mdash; &ldquo;was folded into the DOE.
&ldquo;The job of the energy secretary is NOT to screw around with these people,&rdquo; he says, referring to the highly educated staff working at national labs. He underscores, then, the importance of having knowledgeable leadership in this complex environment.
&ldquo;Wright is a splendid choice from Trump,&rdquo; Byron summarizes. &ldquo;The guy has the education and technical background to run the DOE.&rdquo; Overall, Byron believes Wright will be beneficial for U.S. energy policy while effectively representing oil and gas interests.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Ship of Fools?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />If you&rsquo;re feeling salty about the election results, residential cruise line Villa Vie promises to whisk you away. You can even choose your own adventure aboard the ship Odyssey, ranging from&hellip;
<ul>
<li>The one-year &ldquo;Escape From Reality&rdquo; package</li>
<li>A two-year &ldquo;Mid-Term Selection&rdquo; getaway</li>
<li>Three-year &ldquo;Anywhere but Home&rdquo; excursion</li>
<li>Or go all-in with the four-year &ldquo;Skip Forward&rdquo; extravaganza.</li>
</ul>
Keep in mind, skipping Trump&rsquo;s presidency altogether will set you back about $160,000 per person &mdash; which might be cheaper than assisted living. (Or therapy!)
And hey, they look like fun&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1UNNWsO20QUoFFN80HLuwy/b911373e6015bd0b5de17b4e02d8011c/cheers.png" width="450px" />

Courtesy: villavieresidences.comIt&rsquo;s 5 o&rsquo;clock somewhere&hellip;
But CEO Mikael Petterson insists cruise life isn't just for, say, disgruntled Democrats. The Odyssey even hosted dueling election watch parties, with Fox News and MSNBC viewers segregated to opposite ends of the ship.
So if you&rsquo;re itching to escape the political circus and trade your ballot for a beach towel, hop aboard the Odyssey. After all, who needs civic engagement when you can sip cocktails while pretending the world&rsquo;s problems don&rsquo;t exist?
Too judgy? Maybe so&hellip; Cheers to you, reader! We&rsquo;ll be back at it tomorrow.
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 1500590138 (1)

The Carvana (CVNA) story is like a phoenix rising from the ashes. But how about a “stock that has yet to take off in earnest — set up for an echo boom”?


Missed Carvana's 400% Surge?

trump-cartoon

“It’s not too soon to start building a portfolio that will outperform the stock market in the early years of the new Trump administration,” says Jim Rickards.

The “47” Investment Playbook

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Trump&rsquo;s Tech Revolution Is Here
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Donald Trump's re-election has sparked optimism in Silicon Valley. Despite past tensions between the president-elect and industry leaders, our AI-and-crypto expert James Altucher believes Trump&rsquo;s second term could usher in a new era of growth and innovation for the tech industry.
Since Election Day? &ldquo;The Nasdaq's 1,000-plus-point surge,&rdquo; James says, &ldquo;is just the preview of tech's next chapter.&rdquo; This uptick is seen as a harbinger of tech's promising future under the new administration.
A key reason for optimism is the election of Vice President JD Vance.
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;With Vice President JD Vance &mdash; a former venture capitalist with deep ties to Silicon Valley &mdash; Trump's administration brings a unique understanding of the tech industry to Washington,&rdquo; says James.</li>
</ul>
Vance's experience working with influential figures like Peter Thiel positions Vance as a powerful ally for tech innovation in the federal government. Accordingly, &ldquo;Trump's team has promised investment in AI and quantum computing&hellip; signaling a new chapter in America's tech dominance,&rdquo; James adds.
&ldquo;Defense contracts are expected to pour billions into cutting-edge research, while looser regulations could help driverless cars hit the road more quickly.&rdquo;
This could accelerate the deployment of new technologies and foster innovation across a wide range of sectors.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Perhaps no industry celebrated Trump's victory more enthusiastically than crypto,&rdquo; James notes.
&ldquo;Bitcoin's surge past $75,000&rdquo; &mdash; now surpassing $90,000, in fact &mdash; &ldquo;is just the beginning,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Trump has vowed to make America &lsquo;the crypto capital of the planet.&rsquo;&rdquo;
Trump&rsquo;s plans include adding Bitcoin as a federal reserve asset and promising to end the SEC's crackdown on digital currencies. &ldquo;With Republicans comfortably controlling Congress, crypto-friendly laws seem more likely than ever.&rdquo;
James&rsquo; takeaway? &ldquo;The message is clear: Smart money is already moving to capitalize on the Trump economy 2.0.&rdquo;
The impact of Trump's presidency on the tech industry appears to be overwhelmingly positive. The administration's focus on innovation, deregulation and domestic production is expected to create numerous opportunities for growth and advancement in the tech sector.
As James puts it: &ldquo;The revolution isn't coming &mdash; it's already here. Those who recognize and act on these opportunities early stand to reap extraordinary rewards.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

[James Altucher just opened the doors to a very limited &ldquo;beta test&rdquo; for his newest research service. One where you could see opportunities for the biggest market returns of your life.
Its strategy involves a specific and little-known subniche of the stock market &mdash; a subniche we simply can&rsquo;t reveal to everyone. (You&rsquo;ll understand why when you <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2376255">click here</a> now.)

But James is only allowing 250 readers the chance to join his &ldquo;beta test.&rdquo; The good news is: YOU&rsquo;RE invited to take part!
However, your invite will expire on Thursday at 9:29 a.m. EST. After that? It&rsquo;s off the table.
So if you&rsquo;re interested in potentially seeing the most explosive market returns of your life&hellip; <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2376255">Click here</a> now before time runs out.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Inflation Moves in Wrong Direction
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The latest consumer price index (CPI) data released today shows inflation ticking up with prices rising 2.6% year-over-year in October, matching Wall Street expectations but higher than September's 2.4% increase.
This uptick suggests inflation is moving in the wrong direction, potentially complicating the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s recent pivot toward monetary easing.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4TrNJz6rYpDuTguRZNRFML/eca8c1fad9d144419cb8aa3f139b62bb/5Bullets_Inflation_Chart_11.13.png" alt="first jump in 7 months" width="540px" />
Despite the setback, the Fed is unlikely to abandon its rate-cutting trajectory so soon after initiating it.
The futures markets, in fact, still indicate an 82% probability of another quarter-point cut at the Fed's meeting next month. While the CME's FedWatch tool is notoriously unreliable for long-term predictions, it tends to accurately forecast what happens at the next FOMC meeting.
All told: This persistent expectation of a rate cut, coupled with the Fed's reluctance to abruptly halt its easing cycle, suggest the inflation increase is unlikely to derail the central bank's current monetary policy course.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Despite the Nasdaq&rsquo;s monster post-election rally, the index is taking a breather today. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has pulled back 0.25% to 19,230. Meanwhile, the Dow is up 165 points to 44,075 while the S&amp;P 500 is up about 0.10%, slightly under 6,000.
Checking on the commodities complex, oil is up 0.20% to $68.27 for a barrel of West Texas crude. But precious metals are floundering in the red today (more on that in a moment). The price of gold&rsquo;s pulled back 0.40% to $2,596.30 per ounce. At the same time, the price of silver continues to slide; the white metal is down 0.15%, hanging onto $30.
Finally, Bitcoin continues its record-setting post-election pace. At the time of writing, the flagship crypto is up another 3% to $92,500 now. Ethereum, meanwhile, has pulled back to $3,290.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Why Precious Metals Plunged Post-Election
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Donald Trump's decisive win in the 2024 U.S. presidential election triggered a sharp decline in gold and silver prices. The immediate market reaction saw gold prices fall by 2.8% and silver prices drop by 4.5%.
According to CEO of the annual New Orleans Investment Conference and newsletter-industry stalwart Brien Lundin: &ldquo;I should have cautioned that a clear-cut win by Trump would evaporate any perceived geopolitical risk being factored into the gold price by some speculators and, therefore, result in a short-term sell-off.
&ldquo;This short-term trade seems destined to reverse soon,&rdquo; Mr. Lundin adds, emphasizing that the current bull market in precious metals is not built on geopolitical risk, but rather on a long-term trend of monetary easing and increasing debt&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2XYHXVVVqU1OCoC4Gc7ChZ/990d4adc57857071061d9beadee95c61/11.13_Federal_Debt_vs_Interest_Rates.png" alt="federal debt vs. interest rates" width="540px" />
&ldquo;The red line above shows the federal debt, which began to accelerate higher with the post-2008 Great Financial Crisis rescue efforts and truly exploded higher with the fiscal and monetary response to COVID...and then the desperate federal spending as the Biden administration attempted to ensure their re-election,&rdquo; Lundin says.
&ldquo;This fiscal stimulus ran in direct opposition to monetary policy, as the Fed attempted to kill off inflation with severe rate hikes. You can see the effect of rising rates meeting head-on with soaring debt loads in the blue line above, showing federal interest expense.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />; &ldquo;This is a classic debt trap&hellip; a 'doom loop,' as many have called it&hellip; in which the Fed must lower rates to keep the house of cards erect,&rdquo; says Lundin.
&ldquo;Neither party addressed this situation at all during the campaign, and neither is motivated in the least to do anything about it. Far to the contrary, in fact, as control of the White House and both houses of Congress have never promoted spending restraint,&rdquo; he says.
And while the stock market and dollar have surged on expectations of lower taxes and looser regulations, Treasury yields have also risen, &ldquo;in recognition of the inflationary consequences,&rdquo; he points out.
Lundin, therefore, views the sell-off in gold and silver as &ldquo;just crazy,&rdquo; based on a total misunderstanding of the fundamentals behind precious metals in 2024.
&ldquo;This is a truth that the markets will realize shortly,&rdquo; he concludes, &ldquo;which makes this an extraordinary investment opportunity.
&ldquo;The key to profiting from a secular bull market like this one in the metals is to buy the dips. And this is one heck of a dip.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />DOGE: All Bark, No Bite? 
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As expected, Trump has tapped Elon Musk plus former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a name that presumably nods to Musk's favorite crypto Dogecoin.
DOGE won't be a formal government agency. Instead, it will function as an external advisory group, partnering with the White House and Office of Management and Budget to tackle what Trump calls &ldquo;massive waste and fraud&rdquo; within the scope of the $6.5 trillion annual government expenditure.
Heh, speak of the devil&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5B6iQ10g3MeiAHRViBFTEA/1e9aad385f9f1a52bb1af9dd23ce471d/Trump-cabinet.png" alt="trump cabinet" width="400px" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Notorious for his aggressive cost-cutting at X-Twitter, Musk has set an ambitious goal of trimming $2 trillion from the federal budget. He promises, in fact, to &ldquo;send shock waves through the system.&rdquo;
[Sidebar: No word yet whether Musk will eliminate the max $7,500 tax credit for EV buyers. Or if repaying the billions of dollars in federal subsidies that Tesla&rsquo;s received over the years is on the table&hellip; But that would certainly go a long way to building Musk&rsquo;s credibility.]
Vivek Ramaswamy (Vance&rsquo;s personal friend and &ldquo;nametake&rdquo; of Vance&rsquo;s son) suspended his own presidential campaign to back Trump. And he brings his &ldquo;SHUT IT DOWN&rdquo; mantra to Team Trump, having previously advocated for eliminating numerous federal agencies.
The announcement has raised eyebrows, of course. Critics question the feasibility of Musk's $2 trillion target, with some experts calling it &ldquo;mathematically impossible&rdquo; without touching major programs like Social Security and Medicare. There are also worries about potential conflicts of interest, given Musk's companies hold lucrative government contracts (see also sidebar above).
But Trump has likened DOGE to the Manhattan Project, setting a deadline of July 4, 2026 &mdash; America's 250th birthday &mdash; for the duo to complete their work. He's framed the initiative as a gift to the nation, promising a leaner, more efficient government.
As Musk and Ramaswamy prepare to take on Beltway bureaucracy, only time will tell if their Silicon Valley-style disruption can truly revolutionize government efficiency. Or if DOGE will end up being more bark than bite.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Chase Bank Plays &ldquo;Chicken&rdquo; With a 10-Year-Old
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> In a world where banks are supposed to safeguard our hard-earned cash, a 10-year-old girl's entrepreneurial spirit was met with financial malfeasance. 
Young Kinley Maner, a budding poultry mogul from rural Arizona, found herself embroiled in a nightmare with Chase Bank after selling prized chickens she&rsquo;s raised at a county fair.
But after Kinley's sale of six chickens netted her a $2,100 check from the Small Stock Association, Chase Bank stubbornly refused to deposit the funds.
Apparently, a disconnected phone number for the Small Stock Association was all it took for the bank to freeze Kinley&rsquo;s mother&rsquo;s bank account and hold the child's money hostage for over a year.
The family's attempts to reason with Chase went nowhere. The check writer even showed up in person on three separate occasions to verify the transaction! To no avail.
It took the Maner family reaching out to local CBS affiliate KPHO for Chase Bank to acknowledge its error. Suddenly, when faced with potential bad press, the bank miraculously found a way to verify the check and return Kinley's money.
&ldquo;I was surprised when I got it, but I also was excited,&rdquo; Kinley says. She plans to do something fun with a portion of her earnings and deposit the rest to her college fund.
Who knows? Perhaps law school is in young Kinley&rsquo;s future&hellip; On second thought, the poultry biz might be more lucrative.
Take care! And we&rsquo;ll be back tomorrow with more of the 5 Bullets.. 
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Paradigm Pressroom&rsquo;s 5 Bullets

shutterstock 1464850241

Donald Trump's re-election has sparked optimism in Silicon Valley.

Donald Trump, Crypto Bro

5 bullets hero Inside front cover of "1984" novel by George Orwell

shutterstock 1425412037

Revel in the humiliation of the 15%. But recognize, at the same time, the old saw about eternal vigilance being the price of liberty…

Trump vs. the 15% 

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Crypto&rsquo;s Crowning Victory (After Trump)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />It remains to be seen how Donald Trump will make the United States &ldquo;the crypto capital of the planet&rdquo;... but all the same, Bitcoin roared to record levels over $80,000 this weekend.
(And it&rsquo;s over $84K as we go to virtual press. Whew&hellip;)
Bloomberg quotes one Le Shi, Hong Kong managing director at the market-making firm Auros: &ldquo;With the dust from Trump&rsquo;s victory still settling down, it was only a matter of time before a run-up of some sort occurred given the perception of Trump being pro-crypto, and that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re seeing now.&rdquo;
But that&rsquo;s hardly the whole story. It&rsquo;s not just the presidency.
Besides, the mainstream isn&rsquo;t going to tease out where Bitcoin is going from here. We will&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Crypto&rsquo;s first over-$80K reading coincided with a crowning victory for the crypto lobby on Saturday.
As we told you before Election Day, crypto PACs poured unprecedented amounts of money into congressional races this year.
The biggest single chunk of cash &mdash; $40.1 million &mdash; turned a blue Senate seat red. Ohio auto dealer (and crypto entrepreneur) Bernie Moreno knocked off three-term Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, the vocally anti-crypto chair of the Senate Banking Committee.
But the crypto lobby is not partisan &mdash; and so it also plunked down substantial sums on two crypto-friendly Democratic House members running for open Senate seats.
On Thursday, Elissa Slotkin won a tight race in Michigan. And then on Saturday, an even tighter race in Arizona also broke crypto&rsquo;s way&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5TB3VncVnyNBEHVGEcN3Rf/93305016137a4cdda9381495f3792ff6/az_senate.png" alt="AZ Senate Race" width="400px" />
Of the 34 Senate races this year, there were 31 in which the trade group Stand With Crypto could identify pro- and anti-crypto candidates. Of those 31, the pro-crypto candidate won 19.
The margins are even more impressive in the House. Of the 435 seats, a solid majority of 268 will be held by pro-crypto members. (And that number might yet rise with 18 House races yet to be decided.)
"Welcome to the most pro-crypto Congress in American history," says Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;For the first time in crypto's entire existence &mdash; all 15 years of it &mdash; we're about to have regulatory tailwinds instead of headwinds,&rdquo; says Paradigm crypto analyst Chris Campbell.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like crawling through mud for four years, then someone throws you a pair of monster truck keys.
&ldquo;Justin Slaughter, former adviser at the SEC and CFTC, shared a quote from a Biden White House staffer that sums it up: &lsquo;No Dems are going to fight with crypto to the death anymore. We have too many other things to worry about and crypto clearly has more staying power than we thought.&rsquo;&rdquo;
Chris&rsquo; plain-English translation: &ldquo;We bet on the wrong horse.&rdquo;
So how does the more favorable regulatory environment translate to crypto valuations?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;In the entire history of Bitcoin, it's never gone below its Election Day price after the fact,&rdquo; Chris informs us. &ldquo;Not once.&rdquo;
Granted we&rsquo;re working from a small data set. But it does go back to the Obama-Romney contest of 2012.
What does that mean now? &ldquo;If history is any indicator,&rdquo; Chris says, &ldquo;$67K is a floor.
&ldquo;But beyond price, here&rsquo;s what I expect in 2025:
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Treasury starts playing nice with banks and crypto</li>
<li>&ldquo;Arbitrary anti-crypto lawsuits? Poof. Gone</li>
<li>&ldquo;Stablecoin legislation actually has a shot</li>
<li>&ldquo;The ETF floodgates crack open (though maybe not immediately).</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;For years, crypto's been playing defense against a regulatory onslaught. Now? The table's turned. The anti-crypto army just got its marching orders: Retreat.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />If $67K is the new floor&hellip; then what&rsquo;s the ceiling?
Rewind to what our resident crypto evangelist James Altucher said in this space on Election Day: In the event of a Trump win, &ldquo;the pattern is measuring up to $95,000, but markets have a funny way of gravitating toward round numbers. In this case, that's $100,000.&rdquo;
Which is a solid 25% from here, give or take.
Longer term, the Paradigm team is exploring a scenario under which Bitcoin would soar to $279,000 by year-end 2025. That&rsquo;s a 2.5X gain.
Stay tuned for more about that in the weeks ahead&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Small Caps Play Catch-Up
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;It&rsquo;s beginning to feel a lot like melt-up season everywhere you look!&rdquo; says Paradigm chart hound Greg Guenthner &mdash; especially in small-cap stocks.
As we mentioned the day after Election Day, all the major U.S. stock indexes rallied hard &mdash; but the -cap Russell 2000 rallied harder. It&rsquo;s worth a closer look today&hellip;
&ldquo;Finally, the smaller, more speculative names leaped above the choppy range that has trapped this group since July,&rdquo; says Greg. &ldquo;By the end of the day, the Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) printed its largest single-day return in over two years. The IWM chart tells the story&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6JutYtjxhEc4v8ENeL1piR/65ee12428bb132c31ead4bbe3f478a58/ttr-issue-11-8-24-img-1.png" alt="iwm chart" />
&ldquo;Small caps have been a tricky trade for most of the year. IWM was one of the strongest Q4 2023 melt-up movers, yet it failed to extend higher in the new year.
&ldquo;Instead, investors shifted their focus to the NVDA breakout and the growing semiconductor bull that dominated market discourse during the first half of 2024.
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s changing following the election. IWM is putting all that chop in the rearview as it races to catch up with the major averages (it&rsquo;s currently up more than 19% year to date).
&ldquo;A rising tide is lifting riskier assets, and the smallest boats &mdash; small caps &mdash; are benefiting the most. I expect these beat-down names to outperform during the melt-up.
&ldquo;Remember: Most of these names have plenty of ground to recover following the 2022 sell-off. We&rsquo;ll see just how high they can run into the holiday season.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Two &ldquo;Trump Trades&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />If you&rsquo;re looking to pile into small caps for a reason other than &ldquo;number go up,&rdquo; consider this&hellip;
&ldquo;The market is betting on a more business-friendly climate with lower regulations and restrictions,&rdquo; says Paradigm income pro Zach Scheidt. &ldquo;And this is great news for many of the smaller companies listed on U.S. exchanges.&rdquo;
So he&rsquo;s on the same page with Greg Guenthner: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m excited to see IWM surging higher. And I believe the index could have much further to run. After all, small-cap stocks have been treading water for years while mega-cap stocks have been making new highs. So just a &lsquo;catch-up&rsquo; trade could result in several quarters of outperformance.&rdquo;
Another &ldquo;Trump trade&rdquo; Zach says is worth your while &mdash; the oil field services industry.
Not oil-and-gas itself, necessarily. Yes, it will benefit from a more favorable tax-and-regulation environment. But higher production might keep a lid on prices.
But that&rsquo;s no issue for the services companies. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s because these companies help to provide the equipment and expertise to drill new wells and extract more oil from existing wells.&rdquo;
There are three big names in the sector, and they&rsquo;ve been busy snapping up smaller competitors in recent months &mdash; Schlumberger (SLB), Halliburton (HAL) and Baker Hughes (BKR).
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile, today might be the day the S&amp;P 500 notches its first close over 6,000.
The index crossed that barrier intraday on Friday, only to close five points shy. As we write today, it&rsquo;s up a quarter percent at 6,010. The Dow&rsquo;s gain is stronger; the Nasdaq is flat.
Meanwhile, it&rsquo;s another day for precious metals to get crushed &mdash; or for you to scoop up precious metals bargains, depending on your point of view.
Gold is down 2.5% or $67 to $2,616. Interestingly, silver&rsquo;s percentage loss is about the same; usually it gets clobbered worse. The bid on silver is down to $30.48, a one-month low.
<a id="4"></a>
It&rsquo;s the mining stocks taking the worst hit today &mdash; the HUI index down 6.4% and under 300 for the first time since early September.
Crude is likewise getting pummeled &mdash; down over two bucks at $68.12.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Undecided Voters Gave Trump the Edge
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />A quick election postscript&hellip;
Six days before Election Day, we devoted a fair amount of digital ink to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/who-is-still-undecided" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the undecided voter</a>. The Good Authority site told us that &ldquo;Over the past two election cycles, undecided voters have clearly favored Donald Trump.&rdquo;
And so it went this time. According to the exit polls, about 11 million people &mdash; 7% of those who cast a vote &mdash; made up their minds in the week before Election Day.
Trump carried this group by a nine-point margin &mdash; compared with a dead heat among those who&rsquo;d made up their minds beforehand&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5Hoa5R5Nnl902oTUY4d2jR/1f314d2c10b028a2b9994b3d27e2cb43/undecideds.png" alt="Decided on presidential vote" />
&ldquo;The idea that &lsquo;undecided voters&rsquo; don't exist is a total myth,&rdquo; says our favorite political reporter Michael Tracey. It&rsquo;s just that &ldquo;most people are not scrolling for political news on X all day.&rdquo; Heh&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Censorship, Cruelty, Budget Cuts
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />After I mentioned <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-censors-smack-paradigm-press" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on Friday</a> that Jim Rickards&rsquo; post-election debrief got the banhammer from YouTube, we heard from a couple of like-minded readers&hellip;
&ldquo;I wondered how long it would take for Jim&rsquo;s excommunication @ ScrewTube. Now I know. Move on over to Rumble, Jim. They&rsquo;re great with free speech and have their own infrastructure, so they don&rsquo;t need someone else&rsquo;s servers etc.&rdquo;
&ldquo;If you switch to Rumble,&rdquo; says another, &ldquo;there will not be an issue with getting de-platformed. It&rsquo;s also free for subscribers to watch unless the subscriber wants to cut out commercials. I suggest that you check it out. There is also a way to make money for Paradigm Press.&rdquo;
Dave responds: As I mentioned early this year, Rumble is definitely on our radar. But for the moment, the number of available eyeballs on YouTube is still too big for us to pass up.
Besides, at this point it behooves us to bide our time and see whether the leadership at YouTube/Google/Alphabet might come to the same conclusions <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/nvidia-insurance#3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">that Mark Zuckerberg did</a> (and, <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/bezos-accepts-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arguably, Jeff Bezos</a>).
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;I enjoy your work very much&hellip;
[After 14-plus years of doing this, I know what word is coming next&hellip;]
&ldquo;&hellip; but have to comment about your statement re &lsquo;Russia's cruel invasion of Ukraine.&rsquo;
&ldquo;We had militarized Ukraine, which then went on to attack the Russian speakers in the eastern Donbass, the Luhansk and Donetsk, killing upward of 15,000. These entities had declared themselves independent, and at their call for help Russia went in with a small contingent, not planning at the time for a full-scale war.
&ldquo;This has been my understanding from interviews given by Scott Ritter, Douglas Macgregor and others.
&ldquo;Again, I greatly enjoy your writing, and look forward to it each day.&rdquo;
Dave: I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s a contradiction to call the invasion &ldquo;cruel&rdquo;... and at the same time acknowledge that the invasion was the inevitable result of serial provocations by Washington, D.C., over the course of two decades.
Also &mdash; and not to be pedantic about it &mdash; please exercise care with the use of the word &ldquo;we.&rdquo; You didn&rsquo;t militarize Ukraine and neither did I. It was three successive administrations in Washington &mdash; yes, including Trump&rsquo;s &mdash; that did that.
As Richard Maybury, one of the newsletter industry&rsquo;s graybeards, is fond of reminding readers&hellip; the government and the people are not the same thing.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />On the subject of slashing the size of government, &ldquo;Elon Musk needs to visit with David Stockman,&rdquo; writes a member of our Omega Wealth Circle.
&ldquo;David, as you may recall, was Reagan's first director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where he was tasked with cutting waste and inefficiency. He went about the job enthusiastically, and did have a few successes, but as I recall, finally quit in frustration. I'm sure he would have some lessons learned to share with Elon.
&ldquo;Personally, I hope Trump/Elon go more for the Milei chain saw approach by eliminating whole departments and even agencies, but we'll just have to see.&rdquo;
Dave: I bet Mr. Stockman would have much to say, all worthwhile.
He and his wife Jennifer graciously hosted me and a handful of colleagues at their Manhattan penthouse some years ago; in the realms of both politics and high finance he is sui generis.
And yes&hellip; he did leave the Reagan administration after five years, realizing he was fighting a losing battle. In the end, Reagan tripled the national debt over two terms &mdash; a feat no one has matched since. Stockman published a bridge-burning memoir, The Triumph of Politics, in 1986.
I might have more to say about the coming budget battle tomorrow. Or not, depending.
Meanwhile, if you want a real blast from the past, check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_94FX4DfJ1Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this NBC News special from Feb. 13, 1981</a> titled &ldquo;A Day With President Reagan.&rdquo;
About 23 minutes in, there&rsquo;s a lengthy section with David Stockman drawing detailed strokes of a budget plan for Reagan&rsquo;s cabinet, in office barely three weeks.
(The special was also one of David Brinkley&rsquo;s final assignments for NBC before he moved on to reinvent the Sunday morning talk show at ABC&hellip;)

shutterstock 2068102940 (1)

Crypto’s first over-$80K reading coincided with a crowning victory for the crypto lobby on Saturday.

Trump’s Crypto Catalyst

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Censors Smack Paradigm Press
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Before we launch into our main topic today, we devote Bullet No. 1 to a reminder that election results notwithstanding, <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-censorship-industrial-complex">the censorship-industrial complex</a> is alive and well.
&ldquo;YouTube removed Jim's Rickards&rsquo; post-election briefing,&rdquo; a reader informs us after we linked to it in Wednesday&rsquo;s edition.
&ldquo;Is Paradigm aware that YouTube removed the video of Matt Insley and Jim Rickards?&rdquo; asks another. &ldquo;I watched it prior to it being shut down. I imagine they considered the discussion of the 2020 Georgia vote disinformation?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Can it be reposted on the Paradigm site?&rdquo; asks a third.
Yes, absolutely. <a href="https://d2z65klgtz99km.cloudfront.net/video/exclusive-post-election-briefing.html">Here&rsquo;s the link</a> for anyone who missed it before it got the banhammer.
In the event, we were told it was taken down for &ldquo;medical misinformation.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The censorship battle is ongoing &mdash; and sometimes, even alleged champions of free expression like Elon Musk are inconsistent.
On his Market Ticker blog this morning, retired internet CEO Karl Denninger <a href="https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=252310">informs us as follows</a>: &ldquo;So-called &lsquo;free speech&rsquo; X has handed me a seven-day suspension for telling the AP to stick their recommendation to get more COVID jabs in their own butts, deeming that &lsquo;violent speech.&rsquo;&rdquo; [Emphasis his]
You can&rsquo;t make this stuff up.
Whether it&rsquo;s elite organs like YouTube or counter-elite platforms like X, &ldquo;content creators&rdquo; are frequently at the mercy of automated reviews and automated decrees with no right of appeal.
We&rsquo;ve been on the censorship beat ever since the day in 2018 when Alex Jones was simultaneously &ldquo;de-platformed&rdquo; by four companies. And we promise to stay on it for the duration.
Let&rsquo;s move on. For Bullets No. 2 and 3 today we recall a fantastic moment in the history of the 20th century &mdash; a moment that is highly relevant now as the once and future president assembles his cabinet.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />35 Years After the Wall Came Down&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />It was 35 years ago tomorrow that the Berlin Wall fell.
As it crumbled, so too did the scourge of Bolshevism that created misery and death for tens of millions across seven decades.
The event made such a powerful impression on your editor as a young man that I bought this poster and had it framed&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1nNduU6c2gJdiDzms5o7kf/923f26bc7a85ca3ae3411892ac172a9d/berlin.png" alt="berlin" width="540px" />
It&rsquo;s stayed with me through several bachelor apartments as well as the homes I&rsquo;ve shared with my bride in big city and small town alike.
Not only did the fall of the Wall signal the end of the Soviet brand of Marxism, but it also marked the end of a Cold War that cast a shadow over the entire globe for decades.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> For the United States, the end of the Cold War was a chance to start fresh and reclaim our heritage of liberty. And our leaders blew it.
There was a time when America would go to war&hellip; and then demobilize when the war was over. That was true even for a brief period after World War II.
But with the Truman Doctrine in 1947, Washington began to adopt a state of permanent mobilization for war.
The &ldquo;conservative&rdquo; movement&rsquo;s thought leaders insisted the values of individual liberty and small government had to be thrown overboard in service to the cause of defeating communism.
William F. Buckley Jr. made the case in early 1952: &ldquo;We have got to accept Big Government for the duration &mdash; for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged, given our present government skills, except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores.&rdquo;
Thus, he went on, we must endure &ldquo;large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards and the attendant centralization of power in Washington &mdash; even with Truman at the reins of it all.&rdquo;
(As it happens, Buckley wrote that article during a two-year stint on the CIA&rsquo;s payroll. Conflict of interest much?)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> When the Soviet menace withered away, America&rsquo;s military-industrial complex refused to do likewise.
If you&rsquo;re of a certain age, you might remember Jeane Kirkpatrick. She was Ronald Reagan&rsquo;s ambassador to the United Nations. She was one of Reagan&rsquo;s hardcore hawks when it came to the Soviets.
Perhaps she was most famous for a speech she delivered at the 1984 GOP convention and this line: &ldquo;They always blame America first!&rdquo;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4acDwXZjScoR87NfNj0nEQ/b3cc07ab2d7669699c25e82fb5d5d729/tv.png" alt="tv" width="540px" />

She also coined the term &ldquo;San Francisco Democrats&rdquo; during that speech. Kirkpatrick died in 2006 at age 80
A few months after the Wall fell, Kirkpatrick published an essay in The National Interest titled &ldquo;A Normal Country in a Normal Time.&rdquo;
How did she see America&rsquo;s role in the world once the evil empire had dissolved?
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />&ldquo;A Normal Country in a Normal Time&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The end of the Cold War frees time, attention and resources to American ends,&rdquo; Kirkpatrick wrote.
&ldquo;The United States performed heroically in a time when heroism was required, altruistically during the long years when freedom was endangered. The time when America should bear such unusual burdens is past. With the return of &lsquo;normal&rsquo; times, we can again become a normal nation.
&ldquo;A good society is defined not by its foreign policy but by its internal qualities&hellip; Foreign policy becomes a major aspect of a society only if its government is expansionist, imperial, aggressive or when it is threatened by aggression. One of the most important consequences of the half century of war and Cold War has been to give foreign affairs an unnatural importance.&rdquo;
And she issued a warning going forward about the elites who had become so powerful during that half-century: &ldquo;It has become more important than ever that the experts who conduct foreign policy on our behalf be subject to the direction and control of the people.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Alas, it was too late. Over the last 35 years, the &ldquo;experts&rdquo; went rogue. The aim, as two of their leading scholars put it, was &ldquo;benevolent global hegemony.&rdquo;
They embarked on &ldquo;democracy promotion&rdquo; in Iraq and Afghanistan &mdash; even as they coddled dictators in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
They put U.S. military bases in more countries than ever before &mdash; 70, by one conservative count. (There are only 195 countries in the world.)
Incredibly, they even expanded the NATO alliance that had been formed for the sole purpose of containing the Soviet threat &mdash; stirring Russian fears of encirclement, ultimately provoking Russia&rsquo;s cruel invasion of Ukraine.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The military-industrial complex metastasized into what former CIA analyst Ray McGovern calls the MICIMATT (pronounced mickey-matt) complex.
That&rsquo;s military, industrial, congressional, intelligence, media, academia and think tanks. The MICIMATT has subverted all the &ldquo;internal qualities&rdquo; of our &ldquo;good society&rdquo; &mdash; at staggering cost.
Years before he coined the term &ldquo;military-industrial complex,&rdquo; President Dwight Eisenhower feared what permanent mobilization for war really meant: &ldquo;Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s not a plea for welfare-state socialism. It&rsquo;s basic economics: Every tax dollar that&rsquo;s extracted from the productive economy for the military is a dollar you and I can&rsquo;t spend bettering our lives.
Ike even ran the numbers in that speech: &ldquo;The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete pavement.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Twenty years of &ldquo;forever wars&rdquo; waged across the Middle East and central Asia from 2001&ndash;2021 cost $8 trillion, according to research from Brown University.
That&rsquo;s not just the direct war-fighting costs, but also all the ancillary costs &mdash; including future health care for veterans and interest on the debt incurred to pay for the wars.
$8 trillion. The entire national debt racked up by Uncle Sam in the two centuries before Sept. 11, 2001 was only $5.8 trillion.
Donald Trump is creating a stir on social media today with <a href="https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1854717077837562314">a promise</a> to &ldquo;dismantle the deep state.&rdquo;
But there is also a stir about the prospect of Trump returning his secretary of state and CIA director Mike Pompeo to a senior role in the administration.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/uZoT2yJ2a8zMNwgm6S3Iq/77688adacba8fca33826d42126bc6e13/Cernovich.png" alt="Cernovich" width="540px" />
Pompeo was one of the worst of the warmongering ogres in Trump&rsquo;s first administration. He&rsquo;s every bit as awful as Liz Cheney, who Trump denounced so forcefully on the campaign trail in recent weeks.
Pompeo was also on stage with Trump the day before the election in Reading, Pennsylvania &mdash; and spoke at Trump&rsquo;s final rally in Pittsburgh.
If the deep state is to be &ldquo;dismantled&rdquo;... and if there&rsquo;s any hope of being &ldquo;a normal country in a normal time&rdquo;... there will be no place for Pompeo in Trump&rsquo;s new administration.
Something to ponder ahead of tomorrow&rsquo;s anniversary&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" /> Trump vs. Powell
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Any decisions made by the Federal Reserve yesterday were quickly overshadowed by chatter about Fed chair Jerome Powell&rsquo;s job security.
Donald Trump has made noises now and then about firing Powell &mdash; whom he appointed in 2018.
The subject came up yesterday during Powell&rsquo;s every-six-weeks press conference. Jim Rickards describes the back-and-forth like so for readers of Rickards&rsquo; Crisis Trader&hellip;
One reporter asked if Powell would resign if the president requested. Powell&rsquo;s answer was &ldquo;no.&rdquo; The reporter then asked if Powell could be legally required to leave as Fed chair. Again, Powell&rsquo;s answer was &ldquo;no.&rdquo;
Another reporter asked if the president could fire the Fed chair or members of the Board of Governors. Powell&rsquo;s terse answer was, &ldquo;Not permitted under the law.&rdquo; When other reporters pressed this point, Powell said &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to get into the political things here today.&rdquo;
Not exactly surprising. &ldquo;The issue is not as much about Powell&rsquo;s personal status as it is about the independence of the Federal Reserve from White House pressure,&rdquo; Jim points out.
In the end, Jim says it&rsquo;s a tempest in a teapot: &ldquo;Trump is very unlikely to fire Powell or pressure him to resign. Powell&rsquo;s term as chair expires in early 2026 so he&rsquo;s not around that much longer in any case.
&ldquo;Trump will almost certainly not reappoint Powell in 2026 and will be free to choose his own chair. It may be politically convenient to keep Powell around in the meantime because the White House will have someone to blame if the economy heads south early in Trump&rsquo;s term as it well may.&rdquo;
Anyway, the Fed did fulfill expectations and trim the fed funds rate another quarter percentage point yesterday &mdash; on top of the half-point cut in September. The rate now sits at 4.75%. The trajectory is for another cut at the next meeting in mid-December.
&ldquo;In Powell&rsquo;s view,&rdquo; says Jim, &ldquo;inflation is normalizing (meaning it&rsquo;s moving toward the Fed&rsquo;s 2.0% goal), and labor markets are normalizing (meaning unemployment is going up but not quickly and not by much).
&ldquo;In this world, there&rsquo;s nothing for the Fed to do except stay the course with 0.25% rate cuts unless there are material changes in the economy.&rdquo;
The major U.S. stock indexes ended the day with the S&amp;P 500 and the Nasdaq at record highs, and the Dow slightly in the red.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Today it&rsquo;s the Nasdaq&rsquo;s turn to take a breather, while the Dow is on track for its first close over 44,000.
As we write, the S&amp;P is also in record territory &mdash; a tantalizing eight points away from the round number of 6,000.
Gold poked its nose back over $2,700 briefly overnight, but now it&rsquo;s back to $2,688. Silver has sunk to $31.34. Crude is selling off to end the week, down nearly two bucks to $70.40.
Bitcoin is in record territory at $76,268. Speaking of which&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />The Taxman Accepts Crypto
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> In what may or may not be a sign of progress, the City of Detroit says it will accept crypto for payment of taxes.
&ldquo;City officials said payments will be made through a secure platform and managed by PayPal,&rdquo; reports the Motor City&rsquo;s CBS outlet.
According to the Detroit Free Press, cryptos that will be accepted include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and PayPal&rsquo;s dollar-backed stablecoin.
The launch date is still up in the air &mdash; &ldquo;mid-2025&rdquo; is as firm as officials will get right now.
While at least three state governments accept crypto for payments &mdash; Colorado, Louisiana and Utah &mdash; Detroit will be the biggest city to do so. PayPal will immediately convert the crypto to U.S. dollars, the better to avoid any price fluctuations.
"This new payment platform will increase accessibility for Detroiters who would like to use cryptocurrency,&rdquo; says city treasurer Nikhil Patel; &ldquo;More importantly, the platform upgrade will also make it easier for Detroiters to make electronic payments &mdash; including those who may be unbanked."
That&rsquo;s interesting. As you might be aware, crypto adoption in developing countries is frequently faster than in the developed world. Now the experience might be opening up to the poorest of the poor in a major U.S. city as well. If you&rsquo;ve got a cheap smartphone, who needs a bank?
The move definitely feels like another step toward mainstream awareness and acceptance.
All the same, considering that the very first crypto was designed to be a currency independent of any government influences&hellip; maybe it&rsquo;s a step back?
Have a good weekend,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

awn-hero-img-09-23-24 Laptop computer displaying the sign of censorship on an internet news site

shutterstock 2090661886

We devote Bullet No. 1 to a reminder that election results notwithstanding, the censorship-industrial complex is alive and well.

The Censors Smack Paradigm Press

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />A Trader&rsquo;s &ldquo;Incredible&rdquo; Superpower
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The longer I trade, the less inclined I am to pay any mind to the talking heads on TV,&rdquo; says Greg Guenthner, Paradigm&rsquo;s trading expert, who offers actionable insight into the world of investing and market analysis.
His philosophy extends to politics as well, with Greg avoiding, ahem, speculating on election outcomes. Likewise, he underscores the importance of focusing on real-time market information rather than relying on predictions or external opinions.
&ldquo;Most investors rely too heavily on predictions and guesswork instead of simply weighing actual evidence they can gather in the market right now,&rdquo; he explains.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Focusing on predictions, meanwhile, distracts investors from understanding the current market forces affecting their investments. 
&ldquo;No rigorous analysis of the markets can glimpse the future. But that doesn't make it worthless! In fact, today's price holds incredible power,&rdquo; Greg says.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1AOxWOWYGQBKWjqO5D5Gq6/0a2274a179dc55c2b846e64db24d91d9/EdTweet.png" alt="ed tweet" width="540px" />
&ldquo;How the price of a stock reacts (or fails to react) to news, earnings or any other event is some of the most valuable information you'll ever receive,&rdquo; he adds.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s what will change when you finally admit that your predictions are worthless and you begin to use actual, real-time information to inform your decisions&hellip; 
<ol>
<li>You&rsquo;ll avoid buying stocks in downtrends: &ldquo;When you finally figure out you have no clue when a stock is going to stop going down, you'll quit guessing and just wait for the price to begin to recover,&rdquo; Greg says.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="2">You&rsquo;ll be cautious with earnings gambles: &ldquo;I actually put on some of my best trades after earnings are released when I have a clearer picture as to where the stock is trending.&rdquo;</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="3">You&rsquo;ll embrace trends: &ldquo;Some investors insist on fighting the markets,&rdquo; says Greg. &ldquo;Sure, you might find a needle in a haystack. But most of the time, the trend will win. Don't fight it!&rdquo;</li>
</ol>
Regarding how to trade the election results? Greg advises patience&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;It will be tempting to start mapping out how the next four years will affect the investing landscape. My best advice: Just wait,&rdquo; he says.
Two words. Simple, but not always easy!
He reminds traders (and investors) of the market's unexpected reaction to Donald Trump's 2016 victory &mdash; where initial drops in futures were followed by substantial gains.
&ldquo;Give it some time,&rdquo; Greg repeats. Learning to ignore outside opinions is a major trading hurdle that everyone in this business has to eventually scale.
&ldquo;Once you develop some consistency in your trading style, you&rsquo;ll find you aren&rsquo;t as interested in interacting with the media noise machine,&rdquo; he concludes. Instead, the market &ldquo;will reveal everything you need to know.&rdquo;
[Our customer service team just added a $511 credit to your account. And we want to make sure you don&rsquo;t miss this opportunity.
Take a moment to explore this offer and discover how to apply your credit to one of our most profitable research services &mdash; immediately.
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2374417">Claim your $511 credit now.</a>]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />The Fed&rsquo;s Dual Mandate 
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The seventh FOMC meeting of 2024 has arrived, and we are here for a complete analysis of what it means for markets and your money,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s macro authority Jim Rickards.
Following a 0.50% rate cut in September, Jim forecasts that the Fed will cut interest rates by 0.25% today, bringing the federal funds target rate to 4.75%. Plus, Jim anticipates another 0.25% cut at the FOMC&rsquo;s December meeting.&nbsp;
He notes the Fed's measured approach signals: What's the hurry? &ldquo;A 0.50% rate cut can always be rolled out at some future meeting if needed,&rdquo; says Jim.
&ldquo;A 0.25% rate cut tomorrow and in December will have the desired effect, at least in the Fed&rsquo;s eyes, without appearing too political or too panicked.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Powell&rsquo;s continuation of the rate cut path is rooted in the Fed&rsquo;s so-called &lsquo;dual mandate,&rsquo;&rdquo; Jim notes. Namely? Price stability and unemployment.
As for the first half of the Fed&rsquo;s mandate: &ldquo;Inflation news has been positive in recent months,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the tale of inflation [using] the Consumer Price Index on a year-over-year basis&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7m4hGL5U9pgTpI84brYBAB/59c75b2ec10c1234d87025ff9629b04c/5Bullets_Chart_110724-2.png" alt="chart" width="540px" />
&ldquo;With inflation under control [at 2.4%], Powell and the Fed have not only pivoted from rate hikes to rate cuts, they have also pivoted from concern about inflation to concern about jobs,&rdquo; Jim says.
The most recent employment data shows overall job growth has stalled, with the private sector actually losing jobs. Plus, previous months&rsquo; job figures have been revised downward substantially..
The Fed is trying to address this issue with interest rate cuts. However, there's a sense that the Fed may be reacting too slowly to this economic warning sign.
&ldquo;At this point,&rdquo; Jim says, &ldquo;it is clear the Fed will cut rates at its Dec. 18 meeting and is likely to cut rates at its early 2025 meetings as well.&rdquo;
As for Trump's victory, it won't immediately change how the Federal Reserve makes decisions. Nevertheless, &ldquo;there will be implications in terms of Jay Powell&rsquo;s tenure as chair and appointments to the board of governors to fill vacancies.&rdquo;
Jim adds, &ldquo;For now, it&rsquo;s steady as she goes.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The market continues to hold up well in this post-election environment. Of the three major stock indexes, the Nasdaq is faring best: up 1.30% to 19,235. Meanwhile, the S&amp;P 500 is up 0.65%, just a hair below 6,000. The Big Board is up 0.10% to 43,765.
The price of oil today is up 0.65% to $72.23 for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate. And precious metals have rebounded. Gold is up 1% to $2,705.60 per ounce, and silver is up 1.65% to $31.85.
At the same time, crypto continues to rock &rsquo;n&rsquo; roll with Bitcoin breaking into record territory at $76,350. As for Ethereum, the crypto is up 6.75% to $2,865.&nbsp;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Two Winners, One Loser (Lower Interest Rates)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Rate cuts will benefit certain companies while putting pressure on others that will find it more difficult to operate in this environment,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s retirement-and-income specialist Zach Scheidt, adding to Jim Rickards&rsquo; assessment above.
&ldquo;On the winning side,&rdquo; Zach says, &ldquo;one area that I like a lot is utilities. With lower interest rates,&rdquo; for instance, &ldquo;utility companies [can] borrow money to build more power plants and other big infrastructure projects that help provide power to AI and other high-tech data centers.&rdquo;
Plus, growing profits could mean growing dividends for utility stocks &ldquo;as the lower rates help generate more business.&rdquo;
Then there&rsquo;s the consumer staples sector: &ldquo;Lower rates tend to decrease the value of the U.S. dollar compared to other currencies,&rdquo; Zach explains.
&ldquo;When the dollar&rsquo;s relative value falls, companies with large international businesses can generate higher profits from overseas markets [as] profits made in stronger currencies are exchanged into more &lsquo;weak&rsquo; U.S. dollars,&rdquo; he notes.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;On the other side of the equation, consumer lending companies tend to do poorly when interest rates fall, because they can't charge exorbitant interest rates when lending,&rdquo; Zach says.
&ldquo;One company in this category to avoid is Ally Financial Inc. (ALLY),&rdquo; he says. Because of interest-rate cuts, &ldquo;each new loan the company offers will be a little bit less profitable for Ally.
&ldquo;Ally has already extended loans to struggling consumers, especially auto loans, which are starting to run into trouble. We're [seeing] more delinquencies and defaults, which will hurt Ally's underlying business,&rdquo; Zach says.
&ldquo;We sold this position from our portfolio last year,&rdquo; he notes. &ldquo;If you held on, waiting for the stock to recover, you don't want to wait any longer.&rdquo;
Zach key takeaway: &ldquo;Simply because interest rates are going lower, we're going to be in a different trading environment, a trend that will continue for some time,&rdquo; he says.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />A Victory Lap for Legacy Automakers
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Jim Rickards&rsquo; chief analyst Dan Amoss explores one upshot of Trump&rsquo;s reelection: &ldquo;Companies can make cars that customers want&rdquo; by phasing out Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards (aka CAFE).
Introduced in 1975, CAFE standards require automakers to meet specific fuel-efficiency targets for their vehicle. Initially set at 18 mpg for passenger cars in 1978, the standards gradually increased to 27.5 mpg by 1985. After decades of minimal changes, recent updates aim to significantly improve fuel economy, targeting 55 mpg by 2026.
Dan notes that manufacturing a car according to current standards adds around $5,000&ndash;10,000 to a vehicle&rsquo;s sticker price. Repealing CAFE standards could reduce costs, increasing consumer demand and automakers&rsquo; profits.
&ldquo;Several Wall Street analysts have speculated legacy automakers &mdash; specifically the &lsquo;Detroit&rsquo; [companies] &mdash; would be the biggest winners of a second Trump term and Republican control of Congress,&rdquo; CNBC says.
&ldquo;The current environmental regime would pressure the core business of legacy [automakers, trucks,] to decarbonize by the end of the decade while shifting quickly to an EV portfolio,&rdquo; says BoA analyst John Murphy. &ldquo;We see F and GM as the main beneficiaries from the Trump administration.&rdquo;
Dan adds: &ldquo;General Motors Co. (GM) and Ford Motor Co. (F) trade at four or five times earnings. But if investors get more confident in their cash flows, they could get a valuation uplift.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Pubs, Pints and Pennies
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> At the Flying Duck Pub in Ilkley, England, patrons can now help themselves to a shiny new penny after every pint. Sorta like a reverse tip&hellip;
This in protest to the U.K.&rsquo;s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves cutting the draft-beer duty by a single penny. Among pub keepers, the cut&rsquo;s been labeled nothing short of &ldquo;insulting.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I don't think consumers are necessarily going to see that penny directly, but we are putting an honesty box at the bar where people can help themselves to a penny after every pint they buy,&rdquo; says the Flying Duck&rsquo;s manager Kyle Hamilton.
&ldquo;A lot of pubs are struggling as it is,&rdquo; he expresses. &ldquo;With [the] cost-of-living crisis, pubs are one of the big ones that are taking a massive hit.&rdquo;
The penny-per-pint reduction? &ldquo;It's a very nominal effect.&rdquo; I&rsquo;d say so&hellip; 
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7DmRYBWA29VgbV6ODMDPrq/f3b54d46690db97e5b5f9e8730ff854e/andy-tweet.png" alt="andy tweet" width="540px" />
Here's the kicker: While the duty on draft beer has been reduced, other alcohol duties are set to rise. Starting in February, non-draft drinks including wine and spirits will see their taxes increase; meaning, while you&rsquo;ll save a penny on your lager, your G&amp;T will cost you more.
This is part of a broader budget strategy in the U.K. aimed at stabilizing public finances. But it seems to overlook the struggles faced by pubs already grappling with rising costs.
To add to the complexity, there's an increase in employers' National Insurance contributions from 13.8% to 15% on an employee&rsquo;s earnings above &pound;175 starting in April.
And the BBC says: &ldquo;The threshold at which employers start paying the tax on each employee's salary will be reduced from &pound;9,100 per year to &pound;5,000.&rdquo;
So we&rsquo;re raising a pint today to this historic English pub&hellip; Here&rsquo;s to the Flying Duck&rsquo;s longevity! Despite onerous taxes.
Take care! We&rsquo;ll be back on Friday&hellip;
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Paradigm Pressroom&rsquo;s 5 Bullets

shutterstock 457937452

“No rigorous analysis of the markets can glimpse the future. 

How to Trade Election Results

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Rickards Election Scorecard
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />We begin the day with a little myth-busting: Based on the best research we can muster, Rob Reiner did not threaten to set himself on fire if Donald Trump won the election. Nor did Bono threaten to drive himself off a cliff.
But the unfounded rumors of those threats have prompted great mirth in the meme-o-sphere this morning&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1U8dEeAiztBFx68N4T2WiG/ae5f770cb10888503a7933ec7ae96e79/bono_meme.png" alt="Bono Meme" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />In other news, the pollsters and the pundit class beclowned themselves in 2024 at least as badly as they did in 2016.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5N1nu7QBEnT9eXyJdoXxKs/ebbf9c2f694a17d5b7011bb3f193e51a/glenn_greenwald_tweet.png" alt="tweet 1" width="500" /> <img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4rTvsNN2zgppW2BTguySzO/13c291c80537e2d538a8fb95ec13a8d2/tracey_tweet.png" alt="tweet 2" width="500" />
And so we did not end up with the days-long drama we&rsquo;d been promised. (Threatened?)
Our own Jim Rickards got it right when he told his readers we&rsquo;d know the outcome of the presidential race &ldquo;late on Election Day or early Wednesday morning.&rdquo;
The networks called it for Trump around 5:30 a.m. EST after he&rsquo;d sewn up the swing states of North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />But the trajectory was evident well before midnight. 
Trump expanded on his 2020 margin in Ohio. Kamala Harris&rsquo; margin in Virginia shrank relative to Joe Biden&rsquo;s in 2020. Hell, Trump won Miami-Dade County &mdash; the first time a Republican pulled that off since the elder George Bush in 1988.
At this rate, Trump is on track to win the nationwide popular vote &mdash; which he did not in 2016.
In the interest of accountability, let&rsquo;s run down Jim Rickards&rsquo; predictions one by one as issued yesterday morning to readers of Rickards&rsquo; Strategic Intelligence&hellip;
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Donald J. Trump will win election as president by an electoral vote count of 312-226 in our conservative estimate, and perhaps do as well as 329-209 in a slightly more aggressive estimate where Trump wins Michigan, Virginia and New Hampshire.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
As we write, Trump has 292 electoral votes, comfortably over the 270 threshold. A short time ago, swing state Michigan was called for Trump.
Still outstanding are two more swing states &mdash; Arizona and Nevada &mdash; plus Alaska. If he sweeps all three, that puts him exactly at Jim&rsquo;s conservative estimate of 312. As noted above, Virginia went to Harris &ndash; and so did New Hampshire.
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;My Senate forecast is that Republicans will retake the Senate with a solid 54-46 majority, up from their current minority status of only 49 Senate seats.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
At last check, Republicans have secured 52 Senate seats &mdash; with five seats yet to be decided. Jim&rsquo;s forecast is within reach for the GOP. (More about the state of play in the Senate, given its importance to the crypto lobby, momentarily&hellip;)
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;My House forecast with 435 seats up for grabs is more speculative (due to scarce polling data), but my best estimate is that the Republicans will hold the House and increase their lead slightly to 225-210, up from the current margin of 220-212 (with 3 vacancies). That will give the Republicans a solid working majority.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
Here, it&rsquo;s simply too soon to tell. The Republicans have won 198 seats, the Democrats 180. That leaves 57 seats to be determined &mdash; a number on par with the day after the 2022 midterm elections, by the way.
Not a bad series of calls &mdash; and way better than you got from the likes of the vastly overrated Nate Silver (who I thoroughly torched <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2016/11/08/special-edition-brexit-plus-plus-plus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on Election Day 2016</a>, when Jim also forecast a Trump win).
What does it mean for the investment landscape going forward?
Earlier today at 11:00 a.m. EDT, Jim Rickards hopped on a video call with our executive publisher Matt Insley. If you&rsquo;re not yet familiar with Jim&rsquo;s work, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sN1TuN6oWk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">there&rsquo;s no better time to get acquainted than today</a>. There&rsquo;s no sales pitch &mdash; just down-to-earth information about how to approach your investments in the weeks and months ahead.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4g8EJFZARwBOowNg2yWUAu/b544888d0ef316d03163cf592ffb7e20/jim_briefing.png" alt="Election Briefing" />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sN1TuN6oWk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to start watching Jim Rickards&rsquo; exclusive post-election briefing right away.</a>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />The View from Davos&hellip; and BlackRock
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Of course, it&rsquo;s not just celebrities who are losing it at the prospect of a second Trump term&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/mElbInymdVCPbzCidB7mG/5be675bdffa54bc935b2ece395ae2cdf/wall_street_silver_tweet.png" alt="Wall Street Silver Tweet" width="450px" />
But not everyone in the Davos set is at a loss.
As we mentioned during the most recent World Economic Forum gathering in Davos last January, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/davos-welcomes-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">already at peace</a> with a second Trump term.
Here&rsquo;s a real eye-opener, though: The head of the world&rsquo;s biggest asset manager is also at peace.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7z33Zq8joQpN4rH2tZcB4j/ba464cd5b1c48aeb542e00d5d60f3a2e/ft_tweet.png" alt="FT Tweet" width="300px" />
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m tired of hearing this is the biggest election in your lifetime. The reality is over time it doesn&rsquo;t matter&rdquo;, said BlackRock CEO Larry Fink at a conference on Oct. 21.
Yeah, that Larry Fink. The guy who might have become Treasury secretary in a Hillary Clinton administration. The guy who brought the term &ldquo;ESG&rdquo; into common usage (until he backed away from it last year).
&ldquo;It really doesn&rsquo;t matter&rdquo;, he reiterated. At BlackRock, &ldquo;we work with both administrations and are having conversations with both candidates.&rdquo;
The financial sector as a whole is rallying big this morning. The KBW Bank Index is up nearly 10% at last check.
Nor is that the only early winner in view. Read on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Early Winners and Losers in the &ldquo;Trump Trade&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />It&rsquo;s safe to say Mr. Market is pleased with a decisive and early Trump win.
All the major U.S. stock indexes are back in record territory&hellip;
<ul>
<li>As we write, the S&amp;P 500 is up 2.3% and over 5,900 for the first time</li>
<li>The Nasdaq is up stronger, 2.7% and within reach of 19,000</li>
<li>The Dow is up strongest &mdash; 3.4% or more than 1,400 points &mdash; well over 43,500</li>
</ul>
But small-cap stocks &mdash; those with a market value under $2 billion &mdash; are performing best of all. The Russell 2000 is up 5.3%. At 2,381 the index is within reach of its November 2021 record.
Specific winners and losers, you ask?
Trump Media (DJT) popped huge on the open but has since retreated to a 3.4% gain. Elon Musk&rsquo;s Tesla Inc. (TSLA) is faring much better, up nearly 15% to its highest levels in over two years.
But TSLA is about the only thing &ldquo;green&rdquo; that&rsquo;s prospering today. The sector as a whole is getting slammed; BlackRock&rsquo;s iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (ICLN) is down over 7% at last check.
Bonds are selling off hard, pushing yields sharply higher. The yield on a 10-year Treasury note is back over 4.4%, a four-month high.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />A precious metals sell-off was probably coming sooner or later &mdash; and it came today.
Early election returns notwithstanding, gold held its own past midnight on the East Coast. Then it dipped briefly&hellip; tried to recover&hellip; and then it was down, down, down.
At last check, the Midas metal is down $76 or 2.8% at $2,667. It&rsquo;s the first time gold has traded below $2,700 in nearly three weeks.
Silver is, as it is wont to do, taking it worse &mdash; down 4.3% to $31.22. The HUI index of gold stocks is down 2.4% to 310, testing a four-week low.
(What was it we said about it being a bad sign silver couldn&rsquo;t reach $35 and the HUI couldn&rsquo;t hold 350?)
Blame much of the precious metals swoon on dollar strength; the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) is up 1.6% to nearly 105, the highest since early July.
Elsewhere in the commodity complex, crude is flat at $72.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The Crypto Election
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Bitcoin made a push to record heights amid the early inklings of a Trump win &mdash; and it&rsquo;s still in record territory as we write at $74,641. And shares of Coinbase (COIN) are up 28%.
As our crypto evangelist James Altucher reminded us in yesterday&rsquo;s edition, Trump promised to make America &ldquo;the crypto capital of the planet.&rdquo;
But that&rsquo;s not all. Crypto&rsquo;s emergence as a force in politics is perhaps even more evident in what might be the second-biggest shocker of this election &mdash; the victory of GOP Senate candidate Bernie Moreno in Ohio.
Moreno knocked off three-term incumbent Sherrod Brown, chair of the Senate Banking Committee and vocal crypto critic. Moreno overcame a polling deficit of six percentage points to win by nearly four.
As we <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/crypto-playing-politics" target="_blank" rel="noopener">documented</a> last month, crypto PACs plowed $40.1 million toward Moreno&rsquo;s campaign.
But as we also chronicled, those PACs are happy to play both sides of the aisle. So they funneled money toward Democratic Senate candidates in Michigan and Arizona. Neither of those races have been decided yet &mdash; and the Michigan race is neck-and-neck with over 98% of the votes counted.
Still, Ohio is victory enough for the industry. &ldquo;Crypto&rsquo;s big bet pays off,&rdquo; says the subject line of an email blasting out the Buckeye State&rsquo;s results.
&ldquo;The next Congress will be the most pro-crypto ever,&rdquo; says a tracker issued by the trade group Stand With Crypto.
By its count, 253 pro-crypto candidates have been elected to the House, compared with 115 anti-crypto. And in the Senate, the group counts 16 pro-crypto candidates who&rsquo;ve been elected, and 12 anti-crypto.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: &ldquo;Nobody for President&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Yes, nobody is still a thing!&rdquo; writes one of our longtimers after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-nevada-option-election-2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;Here in the State Commie Regime of New York (at least the county I live in), &lsquo;None of These Candidates&rsquo; is not an option.
&ldquo;But &lsquo;Write-In&rsquo; is.
&ldquo;So that&rsquo;s the bubble I fill wherever I see one choice listed for all political parties &mdash; and then I write &lsquo;NOBODY.&rsquo;
&ldquo;Rebellious, no?
&ldquo;I figure any candidate who&rsquo;s slimy enough to be affiliated with every party might steal my vote if I leave the column blank.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nuanced form of anarchy. This is what happens as you get old.&rdquo;
Dave responds: As we write, 84% of the vote has been counted in Nevada and &ldquo;None of These Candidates&rdquo; has garnered 1.2% of the total &mdash; over 15,000 votes.
That&rsquo;s good enough for third place. It&rsquo;s also more than double the combined vote for the two third-party candidates &mdash; Libertarian Chase Oliver and Independent American Joel Skousen.
➢ If the latter name sounds familiar, that&rsquo;s the brother of financial newsletter legend Mark Skousen.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Finally, a correction of sorts to yesterday&rsquo;s edition.
When I enumerated the 10 states where the Army National Guard had been called out for election &ldquo;support operations&rdquo;... I claimed to have listed them in alphabetical order.
&ldquo;Just wondering who alphabetized the list,&rdquo; a reader writes.
I confess I pasted that list into my document and noticed only that the first one began with an &ldquo;A&rdquo; and the last ended with a &ldquo;W.&rdquo;
My bad&hellip; my thanks to the sharp-eyed reader&hellip; and I suppose we can all express gratitude that the Guardsmen aren&rsquo;t needed&hellip;

shutterstock 774708895 (1)

The pollsters and the pundit class beclowned themselves in 2024 at least as badly as they did in 2016.

What? It’s Over Already? 

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Election Day: &ldquo;Nobody Tells the Truth&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />How did I not know this was once &ldquo;a thing&rdquo; until a few months ago?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6grh3Ksv535Ncm030KJdmg/0a1aa432e7ffc3eb9f5fb4e406ef8c08/nobody_for_president.png" alt="nobody for president" />
As Wikipedia tells it, &ldquo;Wavy Gravy, master of ceremonies for the Woodstock Festival and official clown of the Grateful Dead, is believed to have nominated Nobody at the Yippie national convention outside the Republican National Convention in Kansas City in 1976&hellip;.
&ldquo;The organizers of the campaign staged a ticker-tape parade down a boulevard in Berkeley, California, with motorcycle police flanking a convertible limousine occupied by nobody.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/37dbHKaLlpSYTdyzeO4KQf/041e698f6e1c598f3b2f85f08b9b667e/dw_tweet.png" alt="dw tweet" />
The campaign&rsquo;s slogans were airtight, beyond dispute, incontrovertible&hellip;
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Nobody keeps election promises&rdquo;</li>
<li>&ldquo;Nobody will listen to your concerns&rdquo;</li>
<li>&ldquo;Nobody tells the truth.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
The campaign was repeated for the next three election cycles.
Wavy Gravy is still kicking at age 88. On a tribute website for the Nobody campaign, his friend Curtis Spangler says there was a serious point to the whole thing: &ldquo;&lsquo;None of the Above&rsquo; should be a valid choice on voter ballots.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Which, in one state, it is. It happens to be one of the seven &ldquo;swing states&rdquo; this year &mdash; Nevada.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3xUsPsugJuDuQzCsUPTTgj/5dd75c83d275546dddd402bb3d0f9192/ballot.png" alt="nevada ballot" />
It will be fascinating to see how much support is garnered by &ldquo;None of These Candidates&rdquo; in the Silver State.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Even if &ldquo;None of These Candidates&rdquo; is not on the ballot elsewhere&hellip; that Nevada option might prove decisive.
In recent days, independent reporter Michael Tracey has spoken with many undecided voters in Pennsylvania &mdash; the state that our own Jim Rickards, among others, says is the linchpin to the whole contest.
&ldquo;Their profile is substantially different than often assumed,&rdquo; Tracey writes: &ldquo;by and large these voters are not &lsquo;undecided&rsquo; between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, but undecided whether to vote at all, because they are (rationally) disengaged from the election process and fed up with the constant onslaught of billionaire-funded partisan propaganda.&rdquo;
Said an Amazon warehouse worker in Bethlehem: &ldquo;Does it make a difference? &lsquo;Cause they gonna do what they want to do no matter what.&rdquo;
&ldquo;My tentative theory,&rdquo; Tracey concludes, &ldquo;is that these voters tend to lean Trump, when pressed, and could possibly be &lsquo;turned out&rsquo; by a competent Republican vote-mobilizing operation, which it&rsquo;s very unclear exists, despite the enormous amounts of money poured into the Trump/GOP apparatus.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />In the meantime, 10 states have activated the Army National Guard for &ldquo;support operations&rdquo; today and beyond.
In alphabetical order they are Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Washington.
In addition&hellip; Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia have put Guard units on standby. They will likely be activated later this week. Good times.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Bitcoin on a Knife-Edge
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Bitcoin sits a hair below $70,000 on this Election Day &mdash; and on a knife-edge, says Paradigm crypto authority James Altucher.
What happens in the days ahead &ldquo;could determine whether Bitcoin heads to $100,000 or tumbles back to $50,000,&rdquo; he tells his Altucher Investment Network subscribers.
Bitcoin&rsquo;s rise to near-record levels coincides with a rise in Donald Trump&rsquo;s poll numbers: &ldquo;The former president has emerged as crypto's unlikely champion,&rdquo; says James &mdash; &ldquo;promising to make America &lsquo;the crypto capital of the planet&rsquo; while vowing to fire SEC Chair Gary Gensler on day one.&rdquo;
That said, &ldquo;Vice President Harris might not be the crypto-skeptic many assume,&rdquo; says James. &ldquo;The Harris campaign is now accepting Bitcoin donations, and crypto groups are <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/crypto-playing-politics" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spending big</a> on Democratic Senate races.&rdquo;
Looking ahead, &ldquo;a Trump victory would likely catapult prices through $75,000 &mdash; the recent high on Micro BTC futures,&rdquo; says James. &ldquo;With no technical resistance above the current all-time high, we'd be in uncharted territory &mdash; quite literally.
&ldquo;If that happens, buckle up. The pattern is measuring up to $95,000, but markets have a funny way of gravitating toward round numbers. In this case, that's $100,000.&rdquo;
On the other hand, &ldquo;a Harris win might trigger initial selling pressure, with $70,000 and $65,000 as critical support levels. A break below could send prices back to test the $50,000&ndash;55,000 range.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />But if you&rsquo;re of a &ldquo;hodler&rdquo; mindset, James says it doesn&rsquo;t matter.
&ldquo;Regardless of who wins, crypto's newfound political influence means more favorable regulation is likely coming. The only real question is speed.
&ldquo;Think of it like a cross-country road trip. With Trump, we're taking the interstate at 80 mph. With Harris, we're on the scenic route &mdash; but we're still heading to the same destination.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Make of it what you will, but Wall Street is staging a solid Election Day rally.
The Dow is up three-quarters of a percent; the Nasdaq is up 1.25%. The S&amp;P 500 is splitting the difference, up 1% at 5,768 &mdash; about 1.6% below the record close of Oct. 18.
Mr. Market seems underwhelmed by the conclusion of the Boeing machinists strike; BA shares are down 0.8%.
Bonds are selling off &mdash; pushing yields higher. At last check the yield on a 10-year Treasury note was over 4.36%, another four-month high.
Precious metals are quiet, gold at $2,738 and silver at $32.62. Crude is adding to yesterday&rsquo;s gains, up another buck to $72.52 &mdash; right around the midpoint of its trading range the last month.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />AI and Nukes: Feds Say &ldquo;Not So Fast&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The federal government just threw an enormous roadblock across the highway leading to nuclear-powered data centers.
&ldquo;The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday rejected a request to increase the amount of power the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania can dispatch to an Amazon data center campus,&rdquo; says CNBC.
Announced last March, Amazon&rsquo;s 10-year deal with Talen Energy was the first of its kind &mdash; a data center getting exclusive access to the power generated by a nuclear reactor. Microsoft then signed a similar deal with Constellation Energy to reopen the undamaged reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, which closed in 2019.
Big Tech needs reliable 24/7 electricity to support the prodigious demands that AI will place on the power grid. These companies would prefer that power be &ldquo;green&rdquo; &mdash; but solar and wind won&rsquo;t be remotely adequate. So&hellip; nuclear it is.
Or was?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The FERC&rsquo;s vote to nix the Amazon-Talen deal was a strange one &mdash; scrambling the partisan boundaries you might expect.
The vote was 2-1, with two of the five commissioners sitting out the vote.
Biden appointee Lindsay See voted against the agreement&hellip; and so did Trump appointee Mark Christie.
For both of them, it appears the devil was in the details: Two power companies in the region &mdash; American Electric Power and Exelon &mdash; said the deal was arranged in such a way that their residential and corporate ratepayers would be subsidizing Amazon to the tune of $140 million.
FERC chair Willie Phillips, a Biden appointee, was in the minority. He said &mdash; more or less &mdash; that the urgency of supplying power for a fast-growing industry overrode questions of who&rsquo;s footing how much of the bill.
&ldquo;Maintaining our nation&rsquo;s leadership in this &lsquo;era defining&rsquo; technology will require a massive and unprecedented investment in the data centers necessary to develop and operate those AI models,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am deeply concerned that in failing to demonstrate regulatory leadership and flexibility we are putting at risk our country&rsquo;s pole position on this critically important issue.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The decision whacked the share price of Talen (TLN). Other names in the space like Vistra Corp. (VST) and Constellation Energy (CEG) fell in sympathy.
Talen issued this protest: &ldquo;FERC&rsquo;s decision will have a chilling effect on economic development in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey&hellip; The data center economy will require an all-of-the-above approach to satisfy the increased demand, including co-location such as Talen&rsquo;s arrangement with AWS, hybrids that co-locate primary power behind the meter while using grid power for back-up and front-of-the-meter connections to utility transmission.&rdquo;
All of which is probably true. But as we chronicled <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/an-out-of-nowhere-crypto-rally/#4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">last month</a>, this is not the first time that everyday homeowners are being asked to subsidize Big Tech&rsquo;s growing electric costs. Sooner or later, something&rsquo;s gotta give.
To be continued&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Post-Election &ldquo;Societal Mobilization&rdquo;
After yesterday&rsquo;s exploration of how anti-Trump forces might resort to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/civil-war-by-another-name" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&ldquo;societal mobilization&rdquo;</a> in the event of a Trump victory this week&hellip; we heard from readers who it&rsquo;s fair to say represent opposite sides of the divide.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The real scenario they need to consider is this: Harris/Walz wins but it's close, so of course as they've been screaming all along, the Trump campaign contests all of the battleground state results because of &lsquo;cheating.&rsquo;
&ldquo;Trump knows that he stands a great chance of having the decision pushed over to the House of Reps or Supreme Court if there's any morsel of doubt.
&ldquo;That would be a slam-dunk election theft if this happens as I just outlined. The Republicans hold a 220-212 edge in seats. They've proven they will choose party over country already.
&ldquo;And as for the Supreme Court, McConnell, Trump, etc. did a great job of stacking the court between 2015 and 2020, so they would obviously pick Trump.
&ldquo;Either of these outcomes would be the biggest election scandal of our lives, and this is his end goal. I truly hope I am wrong.
&ldquo;And in all honesty, the mob rule scenario is a pipe dream. It won't happen. Democrats are scared for sure, but I can't see them mobilizing en masse as described.
&ldquo;I suppose we shall see. Personally, I hope that whatever the outcome is, the good parts of our system survive the next presidency. There are real reasons to doubt that will happen.
&ldquo;Thanks for hearing me out. Cheers.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Counterpoint: &ldquo;I hear what you and John Robb are saying, but I think that if a swarm of pro-Harris forces start seriously getting in our $hit then it won't take very long for the pro-Trump crowd to develop &lsquo;a unifying pejorative or threat narrative strong enough to serve as the basis for a counter-swarm.&rsquo;
&ldquo;Think urban beta males and alpha females against heavily armed Scots-Irish Appalachian hillbillies, military veterans and other generally pi$$ed-off middle and working classes in an existential slugfest. So hold my beer and bring it on, bro!&rdquo;
Dave responds: I&rsquo;m going to throw out another possibility here &mdash; one I first contemplated <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2020/11/03/the-new-civil-war-has-been-postponed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on Election Day 2020</a>.
That is, the actual catalyst for &ldquo;civil war&rdquo; or some other kind of &ldquo;social upheaval&rdquo; will not be the election at all. It will be something else. It might be red states resisting a Harris mandate, or blue states resisting a Trump mandate.
From the vantage point of today, it&rsquo;s impossible to say&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />The Endless Vote Count
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Vote counting takes so long, and is mistrusted because we are still doing it in an archaic manner,&rdquo; a reader replies to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-endless-vote-count" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Friday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;When I look at my Social Security statement or IRS records I have to use an identity verification called ID.ME, which I had to set up with my ID and a facial recognition app. I can transfer some assets instantly with a digital token. All of my crypto transactions are stored on the blockchain, where their records are identifiable.
&ldquo;This entire Stone Age voting system could be quickly and easily replaced using these technologies. Voting results would be known instantly and there would be no question about their integrity. I would have loved to see a candidate campaigning on this simple fix but actually solving problems is clearly not a priority for either candidate.&rdquo;
Dave: On the surface, that sounds like a privacy nightmare.
In a way, the current &ldquo;archaic&rdquo; methods of voting are an improvement on how it was even a decade ago.
After the "hanging chad" debacle of 2000, the feds blew $3 billion on electronic voting machines... then left it to the states to maintain and replace them. Whoops, many states didn&rsquo;t have the money for that.
Just as well: Touch screens were a fiasco from the get-go. In our voluminous archives, we see that during the 2014 midterms, votes for Democrats in Texas flipped to Republican, while votes for Republicans in Illinois flipped to Democrat.
According to the MIT Election Data Science Lab, 93% of votes cast in 2020 had a paper record &mdash; either filled out by hand or printed by a machine for the voter to review.
I dunno, seems like progress?

shutterstock 426883768 (1)

Should “None of the Above” be a choice on voter ballots? In one state, it is. 

The Nevada Option: Election 2024

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />&ldquo;The Fifth Pathway&hellip;&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Decisions, decisions&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5ttPwzuhdLGFJulcsJ1eZ8/69b259b3e30ccb3575786b46a1a3529d/civil_war_meme.png" alt="civil war meme" width="400px" />
We pick up this morning where we left off with Bullet No. 1 last Tuesday &mdash; the election &ldquo;war game&rdquo; carried out by several dozen Democrats and Never-Trump Republicans in the summer of 2020.
To refresh your memory, the most eyebrow-raising scenario to emerge from the exercise was one characterized as a &ldquo;clear Trump win&rdquo; &mdash; that is, Trump comes out on top in the Electoral College but Joe Biden garners a five-point margin in the popular vote.
Biden &mdash; played in this exercise by the longtime Democratic operative John Podesta &mdash; puts up a fight. He encourages competing slates of electors in states where he lost narrowly. He even eggs on the West Coast states to threaten secession unless Republicans agree to abolish the Electoral College and to split California into five states to boost its representation in the Senate.
The certification of the election by Congress deadlocks &mdash; and as the group&rsquo;s final report summed up, &ldquo;Jan. 20 arrived without a single president-elect entitled to be commander in chief after noon that day. It was unclear what the military would do in this situation.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Today we tease out what might happen if similar events unfold&hellip; in reality&hellip; in 2024.
Eleven days ago, The New York Times published an opinion piece titled &ldquo;There Are Four Anti-Trump Pathways We Failed to Take. There Is a Fifth.&rdquo;
The authors are Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, professors of government at Harvard.
Some of the pathways were in fact very much taken; they just didn&rsquo;t achieve the authors&rsquo; desired result. In any event, they were&hellip;
<ol>
<li>Let the election process play out and trust that in the end, everything will be all right. (Nope, Trump was elected in 2016)</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="2">Keep the offending candidate off the ballot. (The Supreme Court squelched this effort last March)</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="3">Hope the political parties keep the offending candidate from achieving party leadership. (The GOP electorate gave Trump its nomination for a third consecutive time this year)</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="4">Hope a coalition emerges to make the offending candidate a pariah. (This has flopped. Few big-name Republicans apart from Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney are openly supporting Kamala Harris. George W. Bush and Mitt Romney are keeping a stony silence.)</li>
</ol>
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Which leads to pathway No. 5, a choice the authors call &ldquo;societal mobilization.&rdquo;
&ldquo;When the constitutional order is under threat,&rdquo; they write, &ldquo;influential groups and societal leaders &mdash; chief executives, religious leaders, labor leaders and prominent retired public officials &mdash; must speak out, reminding citizens of the red lines that democratic societies must never cross. And when politicians cross those red lines, society&rsquo;s most prominent voices must publicly and forcefully repudiate them.&rdquo;
But as Election Day approaches, the authors conclude that this choice too appears to be fizzling. As an example, they cite J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon saying his company would &ldquo;survive and thrive&rdquo; no matter the election&rsquo;s outcome.
(That the authors would look upon Jamie Dimon as an avatar of moral authority says something truly twisted about their worldview&hellip;)
So the story&rsquo;s over?
Not at all. Read on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Mob Rule?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />What if the top-down process described by the authors plays out instead as a bottom-up phenomenon &mdash; angry mobs pushing &ldquo;influential groups and societal leaders&rdquo; to prevent a victorious Trump from taking office?
This is the possibility entertained in an article published Friday by the always-intriguing John Robb at his Global Guerrillas site on Substack.
In this piece, he invokes the specter of what he calls the &ldquo;network swarm&rdquo; &mdash; a speedy and spontaneous mass mobilization behind a cause.
The most vivid recent example was after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Remember the outrage against all things Russian on social media? All the people flying Ukraine flags? The bars that would no longer serve Stolichnaya vodka (even though it&rsquo;s made in Latvia)? The symphony orchestras that canceled performances of Tchaikovsky (who lived in the 19th century)?
Yeah, that happened. And Robb says it wasn&rsquo;t because Joe Biden or anyone else was marshaling the spirit of the people.
Instead it was the network swarm taking the lead &mdash; pushing Joe Biden to impose unprecedented financial sanctions on Russia, and pushing much of corporate America to shut down their Russian operations.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />In the instance of a contested election outcome, Robb envisions &ldquo;rapid mobilization (tens of millions of supporters mobilized in days) that take to the streets and decentralized on/offline action that coerces governmental bureaucracies and corporations to side with the swarm.
&ldquo;This mobilization overwhelms and suppresses all dissent (individuals, groups and network platforms).&rdquo;
Of course, Trump supporters constitute their own networked tribe. But Robb says they don&rsquo;t have what it takes to become a swarm. Only Trump opponents have &ldquo;the potential to create a single unifying threat narrative,&rdquo; he says &mdash; the one that Trump is a fascist.
As Robb sees it, the pro-Trump crowd lacks &ldquo;a unifying pejorative or threat narrative strong enough to serve as the basis for a counter-swarm. All it can do is dissent with a weak &lsquo;not a fascist&rsquo; or &lsquo;don&rsquo;t do that, it&rsquo;s dangerous.&rsquo;&rdquo;
No, none of this ends in a good place: &ldquo;There aren&rsquo;t any protections against a swarm rapidly mobilizing,&rdquo; Robb concludes. &ldquo;Once it is mobilized, it will quickly seek to shut down all dissent at every level (including extrajudicial means to suppress X).&rdquo;
➢ Here too, the Ukraine example is instructive. Recall how critics of U.S. aid to Ukraine were frequently canceled on social media, their accounts demonetized not for &ldquo;hate speech&rdquo; or &ldquo;misinformation&rdquo; but simply for dissenting from the U.S. foreign-policy consensus.
What&rsquo;s more, &ldquo;decentralized elements of the swarm (devoid of any worry over long-term damage to the country&rsquo;s stability, the rule of law, or cohesion) will simultaneously seek to overwhelm the opposition to overturn the election,&rdquo; Robb says.
A disturbing scenario, yes. But one we must nonetheless entertain now rather than later.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />An Election-Driven Market Drop of 20%
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As Election Day approaches, the mainstream tells us Wall Street&rsquo;s confidence in a Trump victory continues to fade&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/77V543RS6yUiTKmITOV204/f01f06c78db200592cdb8916a71f3b2d/ft_headline.png" alt="FT headline" width="400px" />
&ldquo;The dollar weakened and Treasuries advanced on Monday,&rdquo; says the Financial Times, &ldquo;as global markets sharply reined in their bets on a victory for Republican candidate Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential race.&rdquo;
The salmon-colored rag points to a poll showing Kamala Harris in the lead in Iowa &mdash; a state Trump carried in 2020 and 2016, but carried by Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008.
It&rsquo;s one more signpost on the road to a contested outcome. As Paradigm&rsquo;s AI-and-crypto authority James Altucher reminds us, the stock market did not react well to the Bush-Gore drama in 2000 &mdash; which went unresolved for 35 days until the Supreme Court stepped in.
&ldquo;The market fell 20% between November and January,&rdquo; says James.
No guarantees of a repeat, though. Back then, the dot-com bust had already been underway for eight months by the time Election Day 2000 rolled around. This year, the major indexes have all touched record highs within the last month.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The most intriguing market action today, however, is in oil.
Over the weekend, the Pentagon sent B-52 bombers to the Middle East for what it said was the &ldquo;protection of U.S. citizens and forces in the Middle East, the defense of Israel and de-escalation.&rdquo;
Seriously? What exactly is &ldquo;defensive&rdquo; or &ldquo;de-escalating&rdquo; about B-52s? Or the ballistic missile defense destroyers that are also being dispatched? Or the fighter squadron and tanker aircraft?
The possibility, however remote, of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wag-the-dog scenario</a> on election eve &mdash; imagine Kamala Harris being called off the campaign trail later today to hightail it to the Situation Room &mdash; has sent crude up over 2%, approaching $71 again.
The major stock indexes are mixed &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 nearly flat, the Nasdaq up a quarter percent and the Dow down a third of a percent. Bonds are indeed rallying, pushing yields down; the yield on a 10-year Treasury note is back below 4.3%.
<a id="4"></a>
The dollar index is down, but not much, at 103.77. Whether it&rsquo;s the election or some other factor, the dollar rally of early and mid-October is definitely taking a breather.
Precious metals are little moved from Friday&rsquo;s closes &mdash; gold at $2,736 and silver at $32.49. Bitcoin is biding its time at $68,573.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Elon Musk, Ron Paul and the DOGE
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Maybe Elon Musk really is serious about slashing the size of government. 
The story has been rumbling beneath the surface for weeks &mdash; Musk volunteering himself to run a &ldquo;Department of Government Efficiency&rdquo; under a Trump administration.
At first blush, it struck me as yet another empty attention-grabbing stunt of Musk&rsquo;s. Department of Government Efficiency? The name is an oxymoron. Government by its nature is inefficient.
Besides, your editor is old enough and cynical enough to know that politicians and other public figures love to rail against &ldquo;waste, fraud and abuse.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s the ultimate cop-out &mdash; freeing whoever says it from the obligation to identify what programs should be cut if government spending is to be reduced.
And then of course there&rsquo;s the DOGE acronym, a nod to Dogecoin &mdash; the crypto that started out as a joke but was later propelled into respectability by Musk and Snoop Dogg.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />But Musk upped the ante eight days ago: &ldquo;I think we can reduce the annual federal budget by at least $2 trillion per year,&rdquo; said Musk at a Trump rally.
Hmmm&hellip; That&rsquo;s 29.6% of fiscal 2024&rsquo;s $6.762 trillion budget. You don&rsquo;t get there by cutting only the proverbial &ldquo;waste, fraud and abuse.&rdquo;
Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) &mdash; the guy who actually takes the words &ldquo;small government&rdquo; to heart &mdash; saw fit to post the following on Xwitter&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6FjaxtvpjZ28JsmI2yNFf3/54fbf9e2d03f5e87d1d262d481d188e2/ron_paul_tweet.png" alt="ron paul tweet" />
To Dr. Paul&rsquo;s immense surprise, Musk replied, &ldquo;Needs to be done.&rdquo;
Later in the week, Paul was asked on a podcast whether he&rsquo;d be interested in some sort of involvement at the DOGE.
&ldquo;Well I would,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Everybody would know what I believe and there&rsquo;d be no secrets, but I wouldn't want an official position, you know, because I've sort of steered away from getting too involved in the politics of it all right now.&rdquo;
Musk somehow was aware of this, tweeting, &ldquo;Would be great to have Ron Paul as part of the Department of Government Efficiency!" In a subsequent post, he threw in a reference to one of the many classic lines from the 1999 comedy Office Space&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4uHgkmiqWUFXTDYH8COfaO/397671c0385abd04c07ed20125536278/elon_tweet.png" alt="elon tweet" />
Who knows where this will all end up? As Paul said on the podcast, he wouldn&rsquo;t want an official role. His longtime aide Daniel McAdams says if someone from the Kamala Harris team wanted his input on ending the welfare/warfare state, he&rsquo;d be all ears for them too.
&ldquo;We keep the Ron Paul message alive, planting liberty ideas like Johnny Appleseed,&rdquo; McAdams writes. &ldquo;And when the message lands on fertile ground we are happy to engage.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3COODW6VCR7I56rdlE1GJv/df020942c26733ae6ba277c7a31efd75/ron_paul_meme.png" alt="ron paul meme" width="400px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Peanut, RIP
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Today&rsquo;s mailbag begins with a reader submitting one of the many, many memes that proliferated this weekend in homage to Peanut the squirrel&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3QFklU2TjwCskqehCjUT0Y/f5cf457312ef6200c9b7d65d377dfc67/harambe_meme.png" alt="harambe peanut meme" width="400px" />
&ldquo;Poor Peanut didn't deserve what they did to him,&rdquo; the reader writes.
&ldquo;I kind of expect you to already have a mention lined up for him, but just in case you didn't, the internet is already reacting to the state of New York <a href="https://apnews.com/article/new-york-pet-squirrel-seized-peanut-pnut-e6318ee7e74492465bb6b0fc22f085ad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">killing</a> Peanut the squirrel over an anonymous complaint.
&ldquo;Whether it's pets being in danger, or grotesque government overreach, this one is striking a chord with everyone.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Indeed it is.
I didn&rsquo;t originally plan to include it &mdash; but that&rsquo;s only because I don&rsquo;t have anything to say that other people haven&rsquo;t said already. The &ldquo;grotesque government overreach,&rdquo; as you put it, speaks for itself.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6HZA6zFXXfLrOAvrik7CXI/de61deaa1e23690933c4bec8f48d3cdd/squirrel_meme.png" alt="squirrel meme" />

shutterstock 1048623020 (1)

We pick up where we left off with the election “war game” carried out in the summer of 2020. What might happen if similar events unfold… in reality… in 2024? 

Civil War by Another Name

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Wall Street Recalibrates Its Election Bets
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Wait a minute, I thought the mainstream narrative was that markets were already pricing in a Trump victory.
That&rsquo;s what all the headlines of recent days were saying&hellip;
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;U.S. Dollar Surges as FX Markets Bet on Trump Win, Tariffs&rdquo; (Yahoo Finance)</li>
<li>&ldquo;European Stocks Hit by &lsquo;Trump Effect&rsquo; as Odds Tilt Toward Republican Win&rdquo; (Financial Times)</li>
<li>&ldquo;Billionaire Investor Says Market Is &lsquo;Very Convinced&rsquo; of Trump Victory&rdquo; (The Hill).</li>
</ul>
(We won&rsquo;t leave you in suspense. The billionaire investor in question is Stanley Druckenmiller.)
Anyway, that was then, this is now&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5t93YnFELazD4pywczkBy0/8b2c30b35af9c01f047033cff08fbf7a/ft_headline.png" alt="FT Headline" width="450px" />
&ldquo;Investors have been raising their bets that next week&rsquo;s U.S. presidential election will trigger sharp price swings in bond and currency markets,&rdquo; says the Financial Times.
&ldquo;Benchmarks that measure potential volatility over the next 30 days in foreign exchange and equity markets have also risen ahead of Tuesday&rsquo;s vote, as polls indicate a very tight race between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.&rdquo;
The salmon-colored rag points to the MOVE index &mdash; a measure of volatility in the bond market similar to the VIX in the stock market. This morning it sits at a year-to-date high at 135.
➢ Note well: Anytime the MOVE index surpasses 140, it typically signals some sort of imminent dislocation in financial markets &mdash; most recently, the regional bank failures in early 2023. Yes, we&rsquo;ll be watching this one closely in the days ahead.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Why Does the Counting Take So Long?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />But why the sudden jitters on Wall Street after two or three weeks of certainty that Trump would win?
Maybe it&rsquo;s the realization that even if Trump wins, it will only be after days or perhaps weeks of uncertainty.
Elsewhere in today&rsquo;s FT we&rsquo;re told that &ldquo;U.S. news groups are preparing for an election night that may not result in a clear winner. In 2020, it took four days for the media to declare that Biden had defeated Trump, leaving Americans in suspense as they waited for votes to be counted in Pennsylvania.&rdquo;
An abundance of caution? Or &ldquo;predictive programming&rdquo;?
We&rsquo;re reminded of a &ldquo;democracy in danger&rdquo; speech Joe Biden gave shortly before the midterms two years ago: &ldquo;In some cases we won&rsquo;t know the winner of the election for a few days &mdash; until a few days after the election. It takes time to count all legitimate ballots in a legal and orderly manner. It&rsquo;s always been important for citizens in a democracy to be informed and engaged. Now it&rsquo;s important for a citizen to be patient as well. That&rsquo;s how this is supposed to work.&rdquo;
Which begs the question: It wasn&rsquo;t always this way. What changed?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />We don&rsquo;t know the answer. But we do know that in a host of other countries, the results are tallied much faster and with less question about their validity.
The civil liberties litigator-turned journalist Glenn Greenwald has spent the last 20 years splitting his time between the United States and Brazil.
In Brazil, &ldquo;the way every single election works is that the polls open at 8 in the morning and close at 5 in the afternoon or 6 p.m. in the afternoon, depending on the particular state.
&ldquo;And then by 9 or 10 at night, 10:30 p.m. or 11 p.m. at the absolute latest, the full complete vote count not just for the presidential race but for the governor races, for the state legislatures are all fully counted and certified.&rdquo;
Greenwald points to other examples&hellip;
<ul>
<li>France&rsquo;s elections in July wrapped up at 6:00 p.m. local time. By 12:30 a.m., results were known for all but 10 of the 577 National Assembly seats</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Indonesia holds the world&rsquo;s biggest one-day election &mdash; with 205 million registered voters spread across three time zones and 75% turnout. Early results are known within two hours of the polls closing</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>In South Korea&rsquo;s elections last spring, 99% of the votes were counted by 6:00 a.m. the next morning.</li>
</ul>
Meanwhile it took nearly two months this spring for California officials to tally the results from a U.S. House primary.
Greenwald: &ldquo;Is it any wonder, even if the counting is perfectly in good faith, that people have serious doubts about the integrity of the results when days go by and the results keep changing and no one knows where ballots are, and there are ballots over here of one kind and ballots over here from another, and some are destroyed and some get lost and some get disputed?&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Yesterday&rsquo;s Sell-off Is Yesterday&rsquo;s News
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />So much for yesterday&rsquo;s sell-off: Amid more Magnificent 7 earnings and the monthly job numbers, all the major U.S. stock indexes are up 1% or better.
The earnings this time are a mixed bag: Amazon is up 7% on the day after reporting strong growth on both the top and bottom lines. The company plans to plow tens of billions more into AI but Wall Street is OK with that because CEO Andy Jassy promises AMZN can &ldquo;monetize&rdquo; those investments.
On the minus side of the ledger, Apple is down 1.5% on the day. AAPL reported record revenue for the September quarter &mdash; but Wall Street analysts were bummed by the outlook for the current quarter.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile the media were already setting the table for a lousy job number before its release this morning &mdash; Hurricane Milton and the machinists&rsquo; strike at Boeing, they said.
But no Wall Street economist was expecting a number this weak: The wonks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics conjured a mere 12,000 new jobs for October. As a reminder, it takes at least 150,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with the growth of the working-age population.
While that number can conceivably be chalked up to hurricanes and strikes, this can&rsquo;t: The September and August numbers were revised down, and not by a little. Thus the average for the last three months is only 104,000 &mdash; well off the pace for the first half of the year.
Especially concerning is a drop in temporary positions: When times get tight for a business, temps are among the first to get cut.
The official unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%. It&rsquo;s been 4% or higher for the last five months. The &ldquo;U-6&rdquo; rate &mdash; which includes part-timers who want to work full time and people who&rsquo;ve given up looking for work within the last year &mdash; held steady at 7.7%.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />But for Wall Street, the hurricanes-and-strikes explanation is good enough. 
At last check, the S&amp;P 500 is up 1% on the day. At 5,765 the index sits about 3% below its record close notched two weeks ago today. The Dow and the Nasdaq are both up about 1.3% from yesterday&rsquo;s closes.
Treasury yields keep rising &mdash; the 10-year note now over 4.35% for the first time in nearly four months.
Precious metals are little changed after getting slammed yesterday &mdash; gold at $2,746 and silver at $32.71. Crude is back above $70 a barrel.
Bitcoin has slipped below $70,000 but Paradigm chart hound Greg Guenthner says the price action is still constructive.
&ldquo;Bitcoin quickly attacked resistance at all-time highs earlier this week,&rdquo; he says in today&rsquo;s Truth &amp; Trends e-letter. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s now consolidating in the $70K range and it&rsquo;s starting to look like a breakout will materialize any day now&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/NUDIrSEoT6bYPSySlFvjh/6d1774e1780373b327dcacd072ec7f4f/ttr-issue-11-1-24-img-3.png" alt="BTC" />
&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell you exactly when Bitcoin will smash through those highs and start running again,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But when it does, the move will probably be a ferocious one.&rdquo;
One more economic number of note: America&rsquo;s factory sector is still in the dumps, the ISM manufacturing index clocking in at 46.5. Aside from this past March, this number has spent two years mired below 50 &mdash; suggesting a contracting factory sector.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Electric Truck Reality Check
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />It appears blue-state lawmakers and regulators are getting a reality check about going green &mdash; at least when it comes to electric trucks.
California will ban sales of trucks with diesel engines come 2036. But New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Oregon are having second thoughts about following California&rsquo;s lead.
&ldquo;The state is just not ready,&rdquo; says New Jersey state Sen. Patrick Diegnan, the chair of the Transportation Committee. Politico reports he&rsquo;s introducing a bill to delay the start of New Jersey&rsquo;s own mandate by two years.
The reason? Not enough electric trucks and not enough chargers.
For the moment, Washington state is still on board. But the trucking industry is putting Gov. Jay Inslee on notice.
In an opinion piece published on the industry site FreightWaves, Washington Trucking Associations President Sheri Call warns that &ldquo;forcing the move before the technology is ready will have much larger implications for our supply chain and trade-dependent economy.
&ldquo;We need only look to the recent (and brief) East Coast port strike, when shoppers raided store shelves for basic supplies such as toilet paper &mdash; shades of the COVID pandemic all over again.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />The McFlurry Kerfuffle Is Over
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />And now a follow-up to a tweet that we let speak for itself just over three years ago&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4KPz0gidDLbAwH16c8cI3t/35e07f927a129f9231b8e28a5bd48d50/mims_tweet.png" alt="christopher mims tweet" width="350px" />
Because all other problems had been solved at that time, right?
It turns out the problem had nothing to do with negligence on the part of McDonald&rsquo;s or its franchisees. It had to do instead with&hellip; federal law.
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, it is illegal for &ldquo;third parties&rdquo; to bypass the digital locks on anything that possesses a copyright &mdash; such as the software used in McDonald&rsquo;s ice cream machines.
Result? Anytime the machines break down, only the Taylor Co. of Rockton, Illinois is authorized to repair them.
Well, no more. As USA Today reports, &ldquo;The U.S. Copyright Office issued a new set of exemptions last week that allows restaurants to repair equipment used in &lsquo;retail-level commercial food preparation,&rsquo; which includes those soft-serve ice cream machines used to make McFlurrys.
&ldquo;Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group, and e-commerce website iFixit petitioned the U.S. Copyright Office for the exemption, which went into effect Monday.&rdquo;
Public Knowledge issued a statement that&rsquo;s painfully pun-filled&hellip;
<blockquote>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing vanilla about this victory; an exemption for retail-level commercial food preparation equipment will spark a flurry of third-party repair activity and enable businesses to better serve their customers.&rdquo;</blockquote>
&hellip; but nonetheless sane and true.

shutterstock 2389516361 (1)

Why the sudden jitters on Wall Street after two or three weeks of certainty that Trump would win? 

Recently Added Articles: